Rolling in Dough

When Glenn Sparks was a child, his father gave up his job as an aeronautical engineer and relocated the family in order to open a doughnut shop. His father’s vision was to create a “family” business. While that vision wasn’t quite realized, the things that happened over the 20-year history of running a doughnut shop proved unforgettable. Now a university professor, Glenn did the arithmetic and discovered that over the 20-years, he had personally handled over 8-million doughnuts. Upon reflection, he concluded that this life statistic didn’t begin to tell the story of what it was like to be in the doughnut business. There was still a story to be told and, “Rolling in Dough: Lessons I Learned in a Doughnut Shop” is that story. The book’s inspiration came from Glenn’s family and friends who encouraged him to write about growing up in the doughnut business after they heard him tell stories of his childhood that seemed to them almost unbelievable. While the book has the feel of a personal memoir, it is more than that.
The Sparks family’s venture into the world of a franchise doughnut shop is organized into a series of “lessons” that provide the chapter structure and help to organize the material. In pondering the life lessons, readers will be entertained by some hilarious stories, meet an unforgettable cast of characters, and get a view of the doughnut business that only an insider could provide. One thing is certain: after you read this book, you’ll never look at a doughnut shop in quite the same way.