A Hole Lot More

    Doughnuts might be the signature item on the menu, but Dacono main stay Daylight Donuts is a lot more than a doughnut shop.
    And this week, the owners, Linda and Pat Allour, celebrated nine years of business in the community they love.
    The couple smiles when they talk about the last nine years, but from an outside perspective, the work is Herculean.

Photo by Ben Wiebesiek

Daylight Donuts exists because of the dedicated work of one family. From left, David Acosta, Danielle, Linda and Pat Allour.

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    Starting in the afternoon, Pat makes the doughnuts and cooks other items through the night, and then Linda arrives at 3:30 in the morning to work through the day. The shifts are at least 12 hours a day every day of the week except for Saturday nights when daughter, Danielle, and her boyfriend, David Acosta, cook for Sunday.
    Week after week, Pat and Linda put in more than 90 hours each, and they’ve been working at this pace the entire time without a single vacation.
    But Linda doesn’t see this as an unusually high workload. In fact, she tilts her head at the question of how the hours are possible. It’s like asking a calculator to divide by zero.
    “I don’t know. We don’t think about it. It’s not really a big deal,” she said. “It’s just what we do. It doesn’t feel like it’s work. It’s just what I’m doing that day, working on different things as I go. It’s like I’m home.”
    After a moment, she settles on a simple management explanation: “The work simply couldn’t get done in 40 hours.”
    Pat shares this zen-like approach to the work.
    “If you like what you do it doesn’t seem like a job,” he said. “It’s more like a way of life. It’s a philosophy.”
    Philosophy also guides the couples approach to the community. Daylight Donuts contributes food or other resources to many of the events and charities in the Carbon Valley area.
    Dacono city councilman Tom McCune personally experienced the couple’s generosity when his son died in 2007.
    “They threw the benefit for us and they do benefits for a lot of people,” McCune said. “They’re an asset to the community Linda, she’s great. She always gets involved and helps out where she can. She and Pat are so very thoughtful. It’s something else. They’re not just a business.”
    Fort Lupton resident Danny Fisher drives to Daylight Doughnuts every day for a coffee and a donut.
    “I always feel welcome there. I meet more nice people there because everyone is talking to each other and catching up. She’s turned that into a very successful business. She’s good-hearted, outstanding person,” Fisher said. “It’s more than just a donut shop. They’re always coming up with neat ideas.”
    Doughnuts are just the beginning of the menu. In addition to a full ice cream parlor, Daylight Doughnuts serves baked sandwiches, biscuits and gravy, oatmeal to go in a variety of flavors, gluten-free muffins, bagels, a Sunday omelet bar – and even doggy doughnuts.
    “Since buying this place, we have added so many different items to give people choices,” Pat said. “It’s not just about donuts.”
     The decision to go into donut making was prompted, in the beginning, by numbers. Pat had a roofing business at the time, but rising rates for liability insurance and workman’s compensation insurance forced the couple to look in a different direction.
    “We looked at all the options with the cost of insurance and the physical labor of roofing and the economy’s effect, and we decided we needed something new,” Linda said. “In his past endeavors, Pat had made doughnuts. And my very first job ever, when I was 14, was at Winchell’s in Longmont. I have a business (administration) degree, and shingles or doughnuts, it’s still a business.”
    Linda’s degree, from Regis, was an accomplishment in itself. She paid for her classes as she went, and she earned nothing lower than an A in all of her classes.
    But in running Daylight Donuts, Linda quickly encountered lessons she didn’t learn in college.
    “The community connection, that evolved,” Linda said. “When we decided to go for a doughnut shop, I’m business minded, I wrote a business plan. I investigated the demographics, the direct/indirect competition, expenses, flow charts.”
    But then, after working with the regular customers day after day, Linda said a larger purpose started to emerge.
    “You do have a connection with the regulars, and over the years, when one of your regulars passes on, it is like you’ve lost a friend,” Linda said. “It’s not just a business like you thought it would be.”
    As they’ve navigated their evolving role, Pat said the couple has balanced each other out.
    “I know a lot of couples couldn’t do this,” Pat said. “But we look at things differently and that makes it easier to brainstorm and it helps us come up with new ideas.”
    Looking forward, Linda said retirement isn’t on the horizon.
    “It’s always a tug-of-war between being an employee and being a manager,” Linda said. “Down the road, I’d like to bring in more employees so I could focus on the management side.”
    She might even take a vacation one day.
    “I’d like to go to Italy,” Linda said. “I’d also love to go out to California and drive my car on a road that goes through a giant redwood tree.”

Daylight Donuts
821 Carbondale Drive, Dacono,
5 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday
7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday
303-833-2009

Contact Ben Wiebesiek at 303-659-2522, ext. 206, or email bwiebesiek@metrowestnewspapers.com.