RICHLAND — Hours before most people are reaching for their alarms, two figures bustle back and forth inside a Richland bakery, working around each other in movements choreographed by 18 years of sharing a kitchen.
At 3 a.m., Val Driver and Kevin Russell are already hours into their work day, mixing, frying and frosting potato-based pastries that have become a Richland institution — spudnuts.
As the shop celebrated its 60th anniversary last month, Driver, the owner, and her baker’s dozen of employees carried out business as usual — baking, frosting, bantering with customers and creating that unique sense of community for which The Spudnut Shop in the Uptown Shopping Center has become famous.
“This has been my whole life,” said Driver, 54, as she scooped blueberry bran “spuffin” dough into a muffin tin.
Her father, Barlow Ghirardo, and uncle, Jerry Bell, started the shop as part of a franchise in 1948. When Ghirardo fell ill with cancer in the early ’80s, his daughter stepped in to fill his shoes.
“I was working here and kind of fell into it,” said Driver, who’s been running the shop for about 27 years.
She bought the shop in 1999.
The grueling schedule was one Ghirardo didn’t wish upon his kids, Driver said, but despite the 70-hour work weeks, the payoff is worth it.
“I love the people,” she said. “So many people who come in think they’re family.”
It helps that her husband of 21 years, Doug, is supportive, even though “he thinks I work too hard,” she said.
Driver did confess that if she won the lottery, “I probably wouldn’t quit but I probably wouldn’t come in at midnight.”
She and Russell arrive to start baking around midnight or 1 a.m. and have their routine down to a potato-flour steeped art.
First come the spuddies, or cake pastries, topped with a variety of frostings and sprinkles. These sugary rounds are created with a machine, so the process goes quickly.
Once they’re finished, the two move on to spudnuts.
They haul out dough, made with potato flour, in a giant metal bowl — one batch weighs about 140 pounds — and Russell chops it into more manageable pieces.
Though not much nutritionally different than a regular doughnut, the potato flour make the pastries lighter and fluffier, Driver said.
Once rolled out, the dough gets plopped onto the top level of a two-story conveyor belt, where the machine then directs it to the bottom level and it gets run underneath the doughnut cutter — a metal cylinder covered with doughnut-shaped rounds.
Russell and Driver deftly remove the rounds from the cutter and place them on trays, which go into the “poof” machine so the spudnuts can rise before frying.
The spudnut holes and extra dough get used for cinnamon rolls.
On a typical day, the bakery produces 250 to 300 dozen pastries, many of which go out the door by the dozen in cardboard boxes.
But many more are enjoyed by customers who amble in the front door, get themselves a cup of coffee and settle into a booth for a chat with friends.
The shop opens at 4 a.m. and there’s generally a customer or two walking in about that time.
When they step inside, Driver often greets them by name. And she can tell you where they work, or used to, if they’re retired.
Driver and Russell are joined by another couple of employees before the sun rises.
Kathy Walli of Kennewick has worked at The Spudnut Shop for about 6 1/2 years.
Her favorite part?
“Customers,” she said as she stapled boxes together for big orders.
“It’s really fun to get to know them,” Walli said. “And to see them pull up in the parking lot and have their table ready for them. They love it.
“Then again, it spoils them,” she said, smiling.
Russell agreed that customers are the best part of the job.
Eating fresh cinnamon rolls he’s just made isn’t so bad either, he said of his favorite pastry.
Work isn’t finished once customers start coming in. The bakers’ tasks continue, as Driver and Russell roll dough, fry spudnuts, maple bars and cinnamon rolls until they’re a perfect caramel brown, and add toppings such as chocolate and nuts, white frosting and sprinkles or the classic glaze.
“No two spudnuts are alike. They all have their own personalities,” Driver said.
Pastries are almost too hot to touch when they come out of the grease, but Driver’s experienced hands have learned tricks to frost them quickly avoid burns.
As the sun rises, the shop gets busier with customers picking up their favorite pastry on the way to work.
A few times a week, Cody Montizaan, 24, of Richland shows up around 5:30 a.m. for a pair of white spuddies. He’s tried all the varieties, he said, and he knows his favorite.
That distinct flavor has kept him coming back for eight years.
“They’re real homey,” Montizaan said of the shop. “Real hospitable.”
And that seems to be a constant at the shop, even as Driver had to raise her prices in February to keep up with the “skyrocketing” costs of flour and other supplies.
A dozen pastries costs from $5.50 — for glazed spudnuts — to $9, for spuffins.
Though Driver doesn’t recall exactly how much a dozen spudnuts cost the year the shop opened, she thinks it was around 25 cents.
Traffic in and out of the shop’s doors is as busy as ever, however, partly as a result of the its appearance on the Travel Channel show Donut Paradise.
And that constant stream of customers means Driver and Russell catch zzz’s here and there during the day.
Each usually grabs a couple of hours of sleep right after work and a few more before coming back at night, they said.
“I’m lucky if I get out of here by 11 or 12,” Driver said.
The shop is closed Sundays, “so I can recuperate. So we can all recuperate,” she said.
Driver isn’t sure how much longer she’ll be making spudnuts in the dark of night. Both of her daughters have other careers so she’s working on convincing her nieces and nephews to take over.
One of her nieces just turned 1 and experienced her first Spudnut. It was a photo-worthy event, Driver said.
“I’ve always had it in my head … that I’d work until I’m 65,” she said, putting her at 50 years in the shop. “As long as my health is OK.”
Driver tries to take walks around 6 a.m. each day. Otherwise she’d never stop to take a break, she said.
In the light of day, the shop’s several booths and tables are full of customers of all ages.
Driver takes a moment to say hello to a few of her nephews and nieces, one of whom is working at the shop this summer, before heading back to frosting batches of maple bars and cinnamon rolls.
“I hate to think of anyone having to work this hard … but I love it.”
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