Meet Gabby & Ryan Main | Donuteers

We had the good fortune of connecting with Gabby & Ryan Main and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Gabby & Ryan, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
My husband Ryan and I started Happy Hour Donuts after we were both lost our jobs last year due to Covid. We drove up to Denver one day and I wanted to stop for donuts, but my husband, who was a personal trainer at the time, did not want to get donuts. Weird I know! Anyway, I spent the whole car ride home telling him that since he didn’t want to stop for donuts, I’ll just make them instead! During that car ride, I tried to convince him that we should open a donut shop because why not? This was coming from someone who had zero donut-making experience, but for some reason, I was determined to make donuts and open a donut shop. I made our first batch of donuts the very next day and made donuts every day for months until we were able to nail down our perfect donut recipe.

What should our readers know about your business?
Our business is different from your average donut shop because all of our donuts are made with alcohol (hence the name Happy Hour Donuts) and we make specialty flavors that you would not be able to find in a typical donut shop. Some of our fan-favorite flavors are Strawberry Margarita, Champagne, Bourbon Butterscotch Cinnamon Roll, and Spiked Churro to name a few! I’m most proud of the fact that we were able to build a business after losing our jobs due to Covid. We were able to come out of quarantine on a positive note. It was definitely not easy to get where we are today. All of our business is online so trying to get the word out about our donuts was a hurdle at first, but we are now starting to get word of mouth business which is really helping! I would like the world to know how we started our business. We were both unemployed with zero donut-making experience, but we decided to take a chance and we never gave up on this business even when our first donut batches were absolutely terrible. We stuck with it and built a really fun business from it!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We are based in Colorado Springs. Some exciting things you can check out here are Garden of the Gods, The Broadmoor Hotel, and The Olympic Museum. We love to visit Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and especially visit their Elephant exhibit! Colorado Springs has some AMAZING food options! Our favorites include Lucy I’m Home, Odyssey Gastropub, White Pie Pizzeria, 503W, and Birdcall! Manitou Springs and Old Colorado City are always fun places to check out and go shopping or just to walk around and enjoy the day.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We would love to dedicate this shoutout to our family and friends who have supported us and our business from day one! They were always willing to try our donut batches (even the not-so-good ones at first) and have given us motivation to not give up and keep going to pursue this dream!

Website: www.happyhourdonuts.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/happyhourdonuts

Facebook: www.facebook.com/happyhourdonuts