SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A long-time South Sacramento donut shop is fired up after learning a Dunkin' Donuts is moving in right across the street.
The owners of Baker's Donuts learned about the opening from a local news report. Dunkin' is expected to open later this year.
This isn't the first time Suzie Hem and Baker's Donuts has faced off against chain competition. A Krispy Kreme popped up next door eight years ago.
For 38 years, Hem has weathered every storm to keep her American dream alive. Immigrating from Cambodia after high school, she opened Baker's Donuts on Florin Road at just 19 years old.
"This is for my living, all of my life, I've been in here since I finished high school, I come straight (to this) donut shop that I don't know, don't have any experience," Hem said. "Come to work seven days a week, everyday."
Regulars say Baker's Donuts has grown into a Sacramento staple.
"The real people of Sacramento, they know this spot, it's been here," Christopher Durley, a regular customer, said.
Even back 2000 during the market crash, Hem, a single mother of two, faced the toughest storm of her career when sales dropped and she was forced to sleep in her car with her kids for two years in order to keep the business open.
"When I come to work at 5 o'clock, I had to bring them," Hem said. "They slept in the car, then when they go to school, I had to take them to school, when I get out, I take them back here, they do their homework here until 9 p.m."
And when Krispy Kreme moved in next door eight years ago, she said sales actually got a nice bump.
"We know that we be strong, make good donut, and loyal customers will come back for us because we are a small business and they are a corporation and they make donut by machine. We make by hand," Hem said.
But a dark cloud still hovers over her business, as Sacramento County confirmed with ABC10 plans for a Dunkin' Donuts to move in across the street next to an AMPM gas station. Although the county says they haven't applied for a business license yet, they're in the process of doing so.
"I was shocked" Hem said when she learned of the news. "I said, 'Oh my god I didn't know! Why did they do that? It's too close! I have Krispy Kreme already, why is Dunkin Donuts coming right across the street'."
And while she says it's her unique homemade donuts, topped with things like bacon or cookie butter, that set her business apart from the corporate chains, her customers say, it's the people.
"The owners, the way they treat you, you're not just a customer, they know faces," Durley said. "They have a track record, no matter who you put up against them, they ain't going no where."
Which is why Hem says this looming pink and orange storm is a storm worth weathering.
"I know I'm going to make it," Hem said. "They're going to be there but not busy like us, I believe that."
She says she believes their drive-thru and social media marketing done by her son are also things that will keep people coming back, not to mention the loyalty of her long-standing regular customers.
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