In 2023, Americans downed some 10 billion donuts. That’s according to the data gathering website, Statista. And while that donut data sinks in like a cruller in a cup of hot coffee, here’s the math: that’s about 30 donuts a year for every person in this country.
For people living in the Monterey Bay area, it’s likely some of their share came from Red’s Donuts, celebrating its 75th anniversary this month. The family-owned business is still making donuts by hand, using the original recipe, and still selling their donuts in their original store on Alvarado Street in downtown Monterey.
Matt O’Donnell, son of Red’s founder, Herman O’Donnell, says Red’s Donuts got its name from his father’s nickname.
“Well, he was named Herman,” O’Donnell said, “but he had really red hair and so he was always called Red.”
Red’s opened a second location, in Seaside, in 1986. O’Donnell says Red’s got its start when the concept of a donut shop first reached his father.
“In 1950, my parents lived in Arizona. They had a couple of restaurants there, just regular-like diners,” O’Donnel said. But his uncle owned a shoe store on Alvarado Street right across from a donut shop. “My father said he had never seen a donut shop, just donuts, before. And he ended up buying the place, for, I think it was $3,000.”
From there, O’Donnell says, donut making became a daily activity.
“He would go in early in the morning and make a batch, and then he would come back around 10:00 in the morning and he would make donuts in the window.”
O’Donnell says his dad would cut the raised donuts as people watched through the window.
“And he would fry ’em right there.”
O’Donnell dove into making donuts at a young age.
“I actually started making donuts when I was 13 years old,” he said, “and I made donuts for over 50 years.”
Eventually, O’Donnell and his sister, Kathy Saunders, took over the business, owning and operating Red's for decades.
When they were ready to retire from the daily donut grind, they didn’t have far to go to find a buyer. A group of longtime employees purchased Red’s.
One of them, Rosa Reyes, started working at the shop in 1996 packing donuts for delivery.
In 2018, Reyes, together with her husband, Rene, and later joined by their daughter Ericka, bought Red’s. Reyes says they have pledged to not change a thing, including the secret behind Red’s success.
“It’s just keeping the same, everything the same,” Reyes said, “using the same recipes, trying to do the same products.”
Another reason for Red’s success is the warm and welcoming atmosphere. Red’s serves as a gathering place for the local community, or as O’Donnell said, “it’s like a bar without the alcohol.”
There’s more than donuts and coffee in the air at Red’s. You can sniff out a whole lotta love there as well.
One 30-year patron of Red’s on Alvarado Street, who didn’t want to give his full name, said what he loves about Red’s is “Evelyn.”
That’s Evelyn Rosales, who has been serving customers at Red’s since October 1992.
Love blossoms at Red’s between their customers as well, O’Donnell says.
“There’s 2 or 3 couples that met in here, got married, had kids,” he said.
To bring this discussion of donuts full circle, O’Donnell and Reyes answered this pressing question: Why is there a hole in the middle of a donut?
O’Donnell’s scholarly answer reflected his 50 years of frying donuts.
“I think that’s so it will cook all the way through.”
But some may find Rosa Reyes’ response more amusing.
“It’s the healthiest part of the donut!”
