ISSAQUAH (October 24, 2001) - `Transcendent' doughnut shop opens Tuesday near freeway ISSAQUAH -- The much-hyped arrival of Krispy Kreme to the Northwest is less than a week away.

The hot, glazed, melt-in-your-mouth treats made fresh on the premises are touted as the best baked goods money can buy, the Rolls Royce of doughnuts.

``It's transcendent, it's on fire,'' said J'Amy Owens, a Seattle retail consultant. ``It's that good and big.''

At 5:30 a.m. next Tuesday, Krispy Kreme will throw open its doors at Issaquah's East Lake Sammamish Center, near Interstate 90, at 6210 East Lake Sammamish Parkway.

Most people in the Northwest, unless they've eaten them somewhere else, have yet to be initiated on the Krispy Kreme front, but the suspense has been building for months.

The company has been around for more than six decades and is an institution in the South. The first Krispy Kreme was opened by Vernon Rudolph in Winston-Salem, N.C., in 1937.

As word spread that Issaquah would be the first Krispy Kreme location in the Northwest, doughnut lovers wanted to know when. Calls inundated company headquarters. Franchise owner Gerard Centioli put up a sign on July 31 to count down the days, keeping people informed until the opening.

When a sign soliciting job applicants went up at the site, more than 500 people applied. About 120 people, about half of them part-time employees, were hired in three weeks.

Workers have been training at a secret location in the Rainier Valley in South Seattle.

Craving Krispy Kreme

How far will people go to get Krispy Kreme doughnuts?

Consider the case of two officers from the Albuquerque Police Department who landed a patrol helicopter in a vacant field earlier this month near a Krispy Kreme store to pick up a box of the doughnuts after a shift.

``They're amazing,'' said Todd Klick, a Microsoft support engineer who works in Issaquah, just blocks away from the new store. ``They're more like a pastry than a doughnut.''

Klick became hooked when shops first opened in the San Francisco Bay area, where he used to live.

One of the first things Klick said he and his co-workers did while on a recent East Coast business trip was to search for nearby Krispy Kreme stores. Klick said he plans to be in line when the Issaquah store opens.

While the doughnuts get raves from many fans and the company's stock continues to perform well, some observers doubt the Krispy Kreme brand name will become as ubiquitous as McDonald's or Starbucks.

``It's too small of a niche,'' said Tracy Hallgrimson, a Seattle retail consultant.

There are other doughnut chains represented locally, including Winchell's and Dunkin' Donuts, which has four Seattle area shops and is the largest doughnut retailer in the United States.

Krispy Kreme's offerings are more upscale, and the company's brand has the most resonance with consumers, industry watchers say. Still, smaller shops don't seem too concerned about a new player in the market.

``I don't worry about it. My doughnut is a different kind of doughnut,'' said Sothea Chou, owner of Westernco Donut in Bellevue, which produces raised, filled and cake donuts.

``It's new and people want to try something different for a change,'' added Chou, who has owned the Bellevue shop for 13 years.

How the doughnuts are made

Embedded in the Krispy Kreme experience is a factory atmosphere at the typically 5,000-square-foot stores, where customers can watch fresh doughnuts being made.

``The manufacturing component of their concept is riveting,'' Owens said. ``It's truly entertainment retailing.''

Krispy Kreme has a proprietary doughnut mix that is made in Winston-Salem and is shipped to all the stores. The standard stainless steel machinery used to produced the doughnuts is also made there.

Doughnut making is a 24-hour, uninterrupted process at Krispy Kreme shops.

At the beginning of the line, the mixed dough is dropped into a stainless steel container and squeezed out into rings. The rings then get transported onto vertically-situated trays in a ``proof box,'' which moves up and down and gives the yeast time to rise.

The doughnuts then are fried in oil on both sides before being doused with glaze. They move onto a conveyer belt to cool, and employees deftly pick up the hot doughnuts with dowels and place them in boxes. Each store makes nearly 3,000 doughnuts an hour.

A box of a dozen Original Glazed doughnuts goes for $4.99.

Customers can eat their fresh doughnuts in a store's 1930s-style dining room or pick them up at a 24-hour drive-through window.

How will Krispy Kreme do?

Hallgrimson believes that Centioli and his management team have the experience and drive to make the concept fly.

Still, Hallgrimson wonders if Krispy Kreme might have to expand its product offerings in the health-conscious Northwest to keep people coming back.

Centioli doesn't anticipate that will be a problem because Krispy Kreme already has been successful in the calorie-conscious California market.

Adds Owens: ``Fried fat is back.''