Why Amazon and wedding planners are ordering these NY doughnuts by the hundreds

When Jeannine Ridgeway started making doughnuts as a child, watching her grandmother carefully rolling the dough by hand, cutting the rings and gently frying them in a large sauce pot, she never envisioned the scale to which the operations would eventually grow.

Now, Tantillo’s Farm Market is one of the busiest doughnut makers in the business, selling doughnuts by the hundred for employee appreciation events at Ulster Savings Bank and the local Amazon distribution center. The doughnuts recently made a special appearance at the nearby Tuthilltown Distillery for a cider-themed drink special.

In addition to single and small-batch doughnut sales, a regular day might see orders as big as 750, according to Jamie Ridgeway, Jeannine’s husband and chief doughnut maker during the busy season.

“It’s hard to get ahead because you don’t know how many people you’re going to get,” he said.

The cider doughnuts are made fresh throughout the day using cider pressed at Minard Farms in Clintonvale from apples harvested at various local farms, including Tantillo’s.

Their doughnuts have been the centerpiece at countless wedding receptions, baby showers and other special events, and the pies have become a Thanksgiving staple in hundreds of Hudson Valley households.

Despite their ubiquity, you’ll never find a Tantillo’s doughnut on a grocery store shelf. Tantillo’s cider doughnuts are only available at the counter right where they’re made, in a small farm stand at the side of State Route 208.

Tantillo’s will “never sell a doughnut that isn’t fresh,” according to Jeannine, the third generation of Tantillos to run the family farm. Even those with slight imperfections are thrown out as they come out of the fryer.

“We don’t sell them a day old. They’re only packaged if someone orders them,” she said. “We don’t coat them, we don’t powder them, nothing. These are apple cider doughnuts, this is how they come.”

Jeannine Ridgeway took over operations a few years ahead of the retirement of her parents, Len and Beverly Tantillo, in 2020. Now in their 80s, the Tantillos are retired in name only, still helping out almost daily and finding reliability in their life’s routine.

“She loves to have people to talk to, and my dad’s the same way,” Jeannine said. “If he’s not up here talking to people, he’s out fixing things or running errands.”

More: Get 'em while they're hot: 3 spots to grab cider donuts in the mid-Hudson Valley

Though independently employed, the Ridgeways’ two sons, Jon, a heavy equipment engineer, and Joe, an ironworker, are also regular fixtures on the farm. Their sister, Jessica, manages the farm’s marketing and social media.

Jamie credits Jessica’s social media savvy with the doughnuts’ elevation to near-mythic status over the last decade or so.

Tantillo's Farm Market history didn't start with doughnuts

The farm was purchased in 1932 by Jeannine’s grandfather, Frank Tantillo, who made a living selling macaroni during the off season. His son Leonard launched the farm’s U-pick operations in the 1970s, more than a decade before the autumnal activity reached mainstream popularity. Jeannine’s brother, Frank, now manages the orchards and oversees U-pick operations on the weekends.

Jeannine’s husband, Jamie, started working at the farm as a high school student in 1982 and “really never left,” he says with a laugh as he recounts the story. He starts his day making doughnuts at around 5:30 in the morning before heading off to a full day’s work at IBM.

On its busiest day, Tantillo’s will sell upwards of 400 dozen doughnuts, which requires Jamie to man twin doughnut presses and fryers and one industrial mixer almost nonstop.

Customers have come to expect doughnuts while they are still hot, and some are willing to wait half an hour or more if orders are backed up.

Jeannine bakes pies in shifts as frequently as her double oven will allow, in between waiting on customers from behind the register and acting as the farm’s de facto spokesperson to answer the many daily questions.

Inside Tantillo's Farm Market in Gardiner, NY

The open-air farm stand sits in a converted garage, with pallets and crates of fresh produce and artisan items from local makers available for patrons to browse as they await their fresh doughnuts. At the back is the kitchen, tucked away behind plexiglass serving windows showcasing a display of pies, cinnamon rolls and other baked goods, with cider doughnuts serving as the natural centerpiece.

For Jeannine, an avid gardener, one of the greatest joys of the business is sharing her produce and connecting customers with other locally grown fruits and vegetables.

“It’s fun, it’s tiring and it’s rewarding,” she said. “I can introduce someone to Swiss chard for the first time, and point them toward some locally grown garlic to cook with it. Next time I see them, they’re asking for more.”

The kitchen is the heart of the Tantillo’s operation, a slightly industrialized version of the original back room where Jeannine’s grandmother taught her to bake and make doughnuts by hand using her own mother’s recipe. In the decades since, the large table at the center has given way to a stainless steel prep counter, and the small table and chair in the corner where Leonard used to take his breaks was long ago replaced with the primary doughnut press.

But the neat white cupboards at the rear wall are still reminiscent of a midcentury household, complete with fresh-picked vegetables ready to be washed in a porcelain-coated sink.

“We don’t really know what the other farms are doing, and we don’t really care,” Jeannine said. “We’re going to keep doing our own thing.”

This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Looking for cider doughnuts in NY? Tantillo's sells hundreds