Hilary Quinn’s driving instructor had a mantra: “When in doubt, stop.” As the owner and sole-trader of the Dublin Doughnut Co, Quinn is adopting this approach to her business. To me, a final-year student who could not even be considered a proper adult yet, this statement is both comforting and terrifying. As the year continues to hurtle by and deadlines have become omnipresent, stopping does not seem like a viable option. It is extraordinary, then, to discover that Quinn is only 24, yet has the perspective and confidence to step away from her hugely successful business.
The day I meet Quinn is the first day in three years that she and her small team of two employees haven’t made doughnuts.
It had been reported in the media recently that Dublin has reached “peak doughnut” saturation and that Quinn was the “first casualty”. It was because of this misunderstanding that I arranged to meet with her. For the past three years, Quinn carved out a niche market for her small and sugary doughnuts with weird and wonderful fillings (the crème brulee variant will forever hold a place in my heart). They were sold three days a week in seven major independent stores around Dublin, including 147 Deli on Parnell St, Vice Coffee Inc on Abbey St, Camerino on Capel St, 3fe on Sussex Terrace, Dublin Barista School on South Anne St, 9th Degree Coffee Roasters on Westmoreland St and Provender & Family in Smithfield.
Indeed, the company’s reputation was established long before the barrage of doughnut shops began around the city centre. Thus, the sudden closure did not make sense, and it takes a while for Quinn to definitively set the record straight. “It wasn’t a case of business dissipating, it wasn’t a case of going under, [my] head was fully above water the whole time. I just got to the stage where I was doing it three years straight, seven days a week, it occupied my entire life, I couldn’t take a break from it.”
In fact, the media reports seem to have got it wrong. Quinn has expanded to catering weddings up to an hour outside of Dublin, often producing 10-tier doughnut wedding cakes. In fact, one could say that business was booming. Thus, the expansion of the likes of the Rolling Donut and Offbeat Donuts, among others, did not impact the business. “If a new shop opened, I would notice for about a week or two, [that] demand would be offset, but I’d have people coming straight back saying ‘We tried the others, we are coming back to you, because yours are the best.’”
In her eyes, the proliferation of doughnut shops has been sustainable up to now because each one offers something different. For Quinn, the premium quality of her doughnuts and not having a storefront was her unique selling point: “The great thing about my product was that people had to seek me out.”
She never tastes any competitors’ products so as to remain neutral and maintain a business perspective. Though, she admits it is disheartening to see her craft become so commercialised, “all those people using the premixes, they are in it for the business of it, whereas I am in it for the product. You can either focus on your process or focus on your result and I focus on the process. Most people just want a bottom line at the end of the day”.
As for the future, Quinn is understandably reluctant to commit to anything, but confirms she is putting things on pause. “It’s not doubt in myself or the business, but you can’t keep going on something when you have no idea where you want it to go”, she says.
Offering an apt bakery metaphor, she says: “I know that the cream will always rise to the top.” For the moment, Quinn is taking her driving instructor’s advice, and stopping to take stock of her achievements so she can be a “normal 24- year old”.
