It's time to make the Pahrump doughnuts

Tracy Floyd wheeled out another cart of fresh-baked doughnuts last Thursday, a day after Daybreak Donuts, passed its health inspection. Pahrump's first doughnut shop was scheduled to open Wednesday of this week.

The 1950s style decor, with a checkered yellow and blue tile floor and artwork on the walls, make this a step above the stereotypical doughnut shop where police officers eat doughnuts at a brightly-lit counter and wash it down with cheap coffee.

Owner Jerry Bledsoe, a longtime Pahrump resident, said he brought the fiveplex mobile building from Barrick Goldstrike's Bullfrog mine in Beatty two years ago and moved it to its present location on 440 E. Wilson Road. Bledsoe's other job is moving mobile homes and he also owns Big Five Trailer Park.

"We were going to make it a day care center and it was too much paperwork," Bledsoe said. They did some research and decided to open a doughnut shop. "Tracy and I got on the Internet and there was none around so we put one in."

Bledsoe will have three television sets in the cafe. He plans to also add computers where people can access the Internet while eating doughnuts, the building is already wired up for 12 computer jacks. A wooden deck will allow outdoor dining when the weather gets cooler.

Bledsoe said it'll be a full-fledged bakery with bread, pastry and cakes. Eventually, he plans to construct a second building on the 25 acres he owns at the site.

"We also have a delivery truck. We'll have wholesale," he said. "It took us a year to get this started."

There might be pine wood on the counters and Picasso reproductions on the walls, but the doughnut shop won't be going uptown with fancy lattes and espressos. Instead, the ordinary cup of Joe will be served up.

"We want to concentrate on the doughnuts. We don't want to be Starbucks. If the demand is there, we'll add what the crowd needs," Floyd said, who's not related to the rest of the Floyd family in Pahrump.

Diners will be able to look through French provincial windows at the automated doughnut-making system.

"It can make 400 doughnuts an hour," Floyd said. "We're going to have 47 different varieties. We're going to have low cholesterol and low sugar doughnuts."

"When we started this, we didn't make an ordinary doughnut shop. This is far from any doughnut shop I've seen in my life," Bledsoe said.

"We want to be able to cater to everybody, young, old," Floyd said.

A dozen doughnuts will be selling for $5.99 , or two dozen for $11. There will be some grand opening specials.

"We want to have tentatively the grand opening around the 14th of September," Floyd said.

Bakers will start working at 11 p.m., Floyd said, the doughnuts will be ready by 3 a.m. The hours will initially be from 3 a.m. to early afternoon, but eventually they plan to be open 24 hours. Sheriff's deputies working the graveyard shift, or construction workers traveling to Las Vegas early in the morning, can pick up doughnuts and coffee in the drive-through lane without leaving their cars.

The Pahrump Nugget opened a Krispy Kreme donut shop last year. Floyd notes their doughnuts will be freshly baked, not shipped out from Las Vegas.

Bledsoe said they've been getting a great response from Pahrump residents. He said they were getting three to four calls per day before they even opened.

"They either want to know when we'll open or can they have an application," he said.


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