Little Blue Donut Company is coming to Winter Park

Few things beat the deliciousness of a warm, sweetly glazed donut.

Whether for dessert or for simply quelling your aching sweet tooth, a donut can work wonders.

Luckily, for those in Winter Park who need options for sweets, the Little Blue Donut Company is bringing their assortment of donuts to town soon.

What started as a simple exploration of a passion for donuts has turned into a viable business opportunityfor Michael Perfetto and his wife, Alyse. 

Fueled by their rabid customer base, the Perfettos are taking their craft from the food truck to the storefront.

“We just started developing a stronger-than-we-expected following,” Michael Perfetto said. “A lot of people were asking us about if we’ll ever have a store, or if we currently had one, or if we planned on one. As things got moving along we just started looking, and it’s almost come to be.”

The new store, which will open sometime in October, will be located at 223 W. Fairbanks Ave. — the site of the recently closed Scratch restaurant.

Choosing the location for the store came after searching around the Orlando area for the right place, though the Perfettos knew where in the city they wanted to start their business.

“I checked out several areas of town, and then I fell back to where I’m comfortable with Winter Park — it seems like a good place,” Perfetto said. “I was looking to be in the Winter Park area more so than other parts of Orlando. Space is hard to come by there in the right size and configuration — the timing worked out for us, and we just decided to go for it.”

Taking a chance for their business is nothing new for the Perfettos, who dropped their previous jobs to start up the Little Blue Donut Company food truck in March 2016.

In the 20-plus years the Perfettos have lived in the Orlando area, Michael started his own company before selling it off to a large corporation — where he would go on to work for 10 years.

After leaving his job, the Perfettos decided it was time to mix things up.

“We were tired of the life we had with my other company, and we just kind of really liked donuts, so we decided that we would start sketching out plans,” Perfetto said. “It didn’t start out as something we were considering 100%, then all of a sudden, when we put it all down on paper and started looking at it, we decided, ‘OK, let’s start drawing out a truck and we had the truck built — that’s kind of how it came. I left my other job and we decided to do donuts full time.”

Before setting up their food truck, the Perfettos never actually had any experience with donuts. 

The couple did their research and experimented to perfect their donuts. It was a difficult process but one that was worth it in the end.

From that process came the variety of different donuts that Little Blue Donut Company offers today — which includes sweet, savory, salty and even spicy donuts.

One of the biggest perks of having a physical store with more space is that it will help bolster and expand the menu, Perfetto said. It also will allow them to mix up some of their donuts week-to-week.

The perks of having a stationary location for the first time and an expanded menu have customers ready for the opening of the new shop.

“They’re excited,” Perfetto said. “I’m surprised at how many people mention it to us when we work.”