FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (AND COMMENTS)

You’ve got questions, we’ve (mostly) got answers.

How did you get started? We are a small, family-owned, and operated business. There are no investors or restaurant groups involved in PVDonuts, and the entire endeavor was funded out of pocket by owners Lori and Paul. They took a pretty big risk to try and bring something new and exciting to the table here in Providence, and are glad they did! When you come to PVDonuts, you are supporting a truly local business, and we sincerely appreciate it.

Where do I park? There is tons of free parking in the Fox Point and Wickenden neighborhoods, so you can park anywhere on the street! There are a bunch of amazing places to visit in our neighborhood, too. We encourage you to visit some of the other incredible businesses that we're happy to call our neighbors.

Are you handicap accessible? Unfortunately, we are not. However, please Contact Us before visiting or make a note when Placing an Order to let us know that you’ll be visiting and we’d be more than happy to help accommodate, whether it means bringing your preorder out to you or taking your order in person on the day of and bringing it out to you, along with a register to complete the transaction. We have looked into modifying our entrance, but because of the age of our building, it was never required. Building code requires 1’ of ramp per 1” of vertical incline, and a ramp built to code would not be possible in our space.

Me or someone I’m visiting with has a medical condition, can you accommodate our visit? We can absolutely try our best! Please Contact Us before your visit to see if we can help.

How do I place a preorder, and if I preorder, do I have to wait in line? You can click the preorders link in the navigation at the top of our page, or click here! And no need to wait in the regular line, there is a separate area for pickups, so head right on in.

What does PVDonuts stand for? It's a letter play and it stands for Providence Donuts. We take pride in our little city and couldn't think of a better way to celebrate that!

Why do your donuts cost more than a "regular" donut? Our donuts are made fresh, by hand, every single morning - they aren't made in some huge offsite baking facility and delivered to our shop every day. We don't have a sheeter - we hand roll every single batch of dough, and cut each donut by hand. We don't have a glazer - every donut is dipped and decorated by hand. Seriously, every single one. We use higher quality ingredients, and incorporate as many ingredients from other local businesses as we can every month. Additionally, we don't have a single staff member that is paid minimum wage - the quality of life and well-being of our team members is incredibly important to us. These primary factors, among many others, contribute to a higher cost.

What payment methods do you accept? Cash, credit (including AMEX), and debit. We do not accept checks or foreign currency. We don't currently accept Cryptocurrency, but may in the future if the demand is there.

Do you sell gift cards? We do! You have two options: purchase one in-store, or online here.

Why don't you make more donuts after you sell out? We make everything fresh which requires us to start prepping for the next day 24 hours in advance. Everything is made from scratch, by hand - rolling, cutting, dipping, etc. Since moving into our new location, we've tripled our staff and upped production from about 500 to 2,000 donuts a day. We still sell out sometimes as it’s impossible to determine exactly how many donuts to make on any given day.

Why aren't you open other days/more hours? The most important reason is that we’re a small team and believe it’s important for everyone to have a couple of days off to unwind. Otherwise, as a small business with no funding, we want to make sure we make the right moves so we aren't doing harm to our business, and are creating jobs that last. We prefer to scale accordingly and add staff as necessary.

Do you deliver? We partner with ezCater, DoorDash, and UberEats for regular delivery orders from our monthly menu. We can work with you to accommodate deliveries for special events and occasions! To inquire, contact us!

Do you ship? We do not. Our donuts are made fresh every single morning without the use of preservatives or fillers, and they're meant to be eaten the same day. Also, overnight shipping is really expensive and we don't know how they'd hold up in transit.

What time does your day start? On a normal day, 1:30am, but during the holidays we head in around 10pm the night before.

Why brioche donuts? We were inspired by various donut shops around the world and wanted to present a new and unique product offering that you couldn't get anywhere else. Brioche dough creates a beautiful, light, and fluffy donut base that's made with more butter than sugar. This creates the perfectly neutral base for any toppings - it's just the right amount of sweetness!

What types of drinks do you offer? We have nitro cold brew coffee and chai on tap from The Nitro Cart, regular cold brew from The Coffee Guy, and hot coffee from Borealis Coffee Company. We also have milk from Wright's Dairy Farm, hot tea from MEM Tea, and a rotating list of specialty drinks. We don't do any specialty coffees such as lattes or cappuccinos because there are a ton of amazing shops in our neighborhood that offer these types of drinks.

Do you make gluten-free? We make a Flourless donut that is available daily, and "flourless" here means that no products containing wheat are used directly in the production process. We use Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 Baking Flour. We are not a gluten-free bakery and cannot call the product gluten-free, and due to the size of our kitchen, there is a chance of cross-contamination, which is why we're calling them Flourless. Our fryer is cleaned daily and we use fresh oil daily, and we have a separate batch of glazes just for these donuts.

Do you make donuts that are flourless AND vegan? We don't make a flourless vegan donut at this time, and we're not sure when we will.

Why don't you just get a separate fryer for gluten-free (or other allergies/sensitivities)? To be totally transparent, a brand new fryer costs around $7,000, and our flourless and vegan donuts account for around 2.5% of overall sales annually, so it wouldn’t be the soundest investment for us. Besides, we still wouldn’t be able to guarantee that there isn’t a risk of cross-contamination.

Do your donuts contain nuts? Our base donuts do not contain any nuts, but oftentimes we do use nuts in our toppings. Simply put, we are not a nut-free facility and cannot guarantee anything to be nut-free.

Why do you sometimes have a line? Like every other commercial building, we have legal capacity determined by the fire department, which is 50 people. We respect fire laws and will continue to abide by them. That being said, on an average day, 700 people visit our shop. This means that if more than 50 people show up at once, there's a line. Our menu changes monthly, so some folks may have questions when they get up to the counter. We're in the business of making donuts and providing exceptional service, so we'll happily answer any questions and will never rush anyone out the door. Some customers get to the counter and know what they want, some take a little bit longer - we're okay with this as we appreciate anyone who walks through our doors.

Who does all of your social media? The owners do! We will never outsource our social media because we believe in connecting with our audience authentically. The only thing we outsource is our SEO/AdWords, and we're very happy with the company we work with.

Why haven't you responded to my Instagram DM? If we aren't following you or haven't had a prior conversation via IG DM, then we won't receive a notification and your message will end up in requests. At the time of writing, we have 100k+ followers - that's a lot of potential DMs. If you want to guarantee that we'll see your message, there's a contact form on this website and an "email" button on our IG profile.

Your donuts are sweet. We think it would be weird if they weren't.

Your brioche dough itself isn't sweet. We're pretty open about that - see here. There's about 3g of sugar per base brioche donut because it's all about the toppings.

Can we do a collaboration? Collaborations must be food-focused to be considered.

Can I do a pop-up at your store? These must also be food-focused.

Will you donate to [insert cause here]? Please understand that we get inundated with donation requests - seriously, sometimes up to 10 per day. We prioritize donations for organizations and fundraisers that align with our values. We will not do a donation based on the perceived value of the marketing and/or advertising benefits that come along with it, as that defeats the purpose. That being said, we do have a donation quota per month, and once we reach it, we are no longer able to commit to anything else. Please don't be offended if we don't respond.

Where can I find your phone number? We don’t have one.

Can we film a segment at your shop? To be considered you have to be fully licensed + insured as a production/film company with the ability to provide us with a certificate of insurance naming us as an additional insured. Please use our Contact Form so we can discuss the details of the segment.

I’m an influencer, can we work together? We respect what you do - and keep doing your thing - but we don’t really do these types of engagements as we prefer to grow our audiences organically.

Can I invest in or buy your donut shop? Make us an offer we can’t refuse.

When are you opening a second shop? Probably never. We thought about it at one point, but there’s so much more that we can do to grow within our current space, and we are continuously learning how to do better and improve our processes. There’s no point in overextending ourselves for the sake of making more money.

Why are you obsessed with Drake? The real question is, why not?

Why don't you [insert suggestion here]? Chances are we've thought of it, but, please use our Contact Form and feel free to recommend something you don't see here - this FAQ is updated when we start to see recurring questions, and customer inquiries definitely help with that.