Local Donut Shop Thriving Because of Saskatchewan’s Stable Business Environment
Regina’s The Everyday Kitchen – the only donut shop in North America focused exclusively on making sourdough donuts – has demonstrated a sharp eye for opportunity and the pluck to pivot toward it. This is indicative of the innovation that small business owners in the province are demonstrating. Entrepreneurship is thriving in Saskatchewan, with local entrepreneurs setting new trends that serve as an inspiration for others to follow.
The Everyday Kitchen truly is a Saskatchewan success story. This Regina-based small business started in the owners’ kitchen and has now expanded to two physical locations, both of which have become cornerstones of the local community.
The Everyday Kitchen’s story has all the right ingredients, including a good dash of intuition and a dollop of community commitment. It begins in 2016 in the kitchen of Katie Shmelinski, co-owner/founder of the company with her spouse Mark. He says Katie was struggling with postpartum and she looked for healing in a favourite old hobby.
“She wanted to get back into baking,’’ says Mark, who worked in digital marketing prior to opening The Everyday Kitchen with Katie. “So I bought her a cookbook in the old Sears clearance centre and she started baking sourdough bread, just for us, just for our family.’’
On a whim, Katie decided to try making sourdough donuts for the couple’s son, who was two at the time and had never tasted a traditional donut. Sourdough is touted as a healthier alternative to typical dough and it’s easier to digest. Katie’s first experiment went well for her son, and her spouse.
“I thought they were great,’’ says Mark, adding his son enjoyed the treat and experienced no negative effects. “But compared to what we’re making now, well, they were OK,’’ he says, chuckling.
Katie tweaked her recipe through 2017, using locally sourced, organic ingredients wherever possible. After casually selling some of her donuts to friends, demand began to spike, and opportunity came into view.
The couple set up an online ordering system and went live with it every Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. “We’d usually sell out by 8:10,’’ says Mark. Pickups at the house were on Saturday and the couple would soon add a second pickup point.
Peak production in 2017 reached an estimated 400 to 440 sourdough donuts per week, but the enterprise was crowding the Shmelinskis out of their kitchen during their one-and-a-half days per week production schedule. The fridge was choc-a-bloc during the product’s resting period and all flat surfaces were commandeered for the cooking process.
It was all becoming too much for one person. “Katie was doing everything. I was assembling boxes and labelling, and taking the dough out of the fridge at about two in the morning. But it was really a one-person show.’’
The Shmelinskis realized that if they were going to grow their small business, they needed access to commercial kitchen space and one or two employees to help keep up with demand. Regina’s Local Market, a food and events facility, had commercial kitchen space available but Mark says managers were looking for someone to do a coffee shop concept. Coincidentally, a coffee shop was something he and Katie had long dreamed of operating. “So Katie signed us up to run a coffee and donut shop,’’ says Mark, chuckling once again. “We opened four days a week in September 2019.’’
The company chose to stay open during the COVID-19 pandemic. And they added citywide delivery and curbside pickup, features that together generated a major turning point for the business. “We were open, we were accessible, and we exploded overnight.’’
Flash forward to 2024. The Everyday Kitchen is making 3,000 to 3,500 donuts per week and operating a coffee and donut shop from in its primary location. Their commercial kitchen provides product for their home shop, pickup and citywide delivery, as well as for their east Regina location which they opened in 2023. Mark says the company employs 20 full-time and 15 part-time staff and is barely able to keep up with demand.
But The Everyday Kitchen is much more than a successful small business for Katie, Mark and their staff. The company’s commitment to community is widely admired.
One of the most noteworthy of their many charitable endeavours involved a 10-week period during the pandemic in which Katie and Mark contributed 100 per cent of their profit to Regina’s food bank and other organizations that are in constant need of help. “It worked out to about $50,000,’’ says Mark. The Everyday Kitchen continues its charitable works through ad hoc contributions to Regina community organizations such as The Comeback Society and North Central Family Centre, as well as by offering their facilities free of charge to non-profit groups staging events. “We like to say that we want to inject hope into the community,’’ says Mark.
This focus on giving back has led to The Everyday Kitchen establishing itself as a community hub by regularly hosting events such as book launches by local authors, music performances, and more. This shows the integral role small businesses play in sustaining a sense of community throughout Saskatchewan.
He and Katie see lots of opportunity for growth, maybe outside Saskatchewan but also within the province, perhaps with new brands. In the meantime, they’re pleased and thankful for their success.
“The original premise behind our sourdough donut was that we wanted to give our son a treat that wouldn’t make him feel ill after eating. That’s exactly what we’re still doing and people tell us they appreciate that.’’
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