Lenox — Life in Lenox is about to get a whole lot sweeter! Following the December 31 closing of their first shop in their Adams hometown, Shire Donuts founders Heather and Jeff King scoured Williamstown and southern Berkshire County for a new business site to accompany their Dalton shop, finally settling on 51 Church Street in Lenox, in the former site of The Scoop ice creamery. The shop is slated to open July 3.
Although the Dalton shop, at 813 Dalton Division Road, welcomes guests Friday through Sunday, the Lenox store’s hours will be extended from Wednesday through Sunday during the summer season. “We realize this is a tourist area,” Heather King said of the peak season, with Jeff King adding that the Lenox schedule may be scaled back as winter approaches.
With the Dalton shop located in central Berkshire County, the Kings debated adding another store either further north or south. “Dalton is a great central location,” Jeff King said. “We do get a lot of customers who come in and say, ‘I wish you were further north,’ or, ‘I wish you were further south,’ so we were just waiting for which location presented the best opportunity for us. It ended up being Lenox.”
According to Jeff King, Lenox Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jennifer Nacht, who owned The Scoop from 2009 to 2021, reached out to the couple about the space’s availability. “We came in and took a look at it,” Jeff King said. “We think it’s probably a great fit for us.”
For Heather King, the downtown location was ideal as it sees a lot of foot traffic. “That’s what we were really trying to reach for with our next location, somewhere where we could have foot traffic,” she said. “The more foot traffic you have, the more opportunity you have to have people come in and shop at your business.”
Local employees will include college students on break, with those staffers returning to the business they worked in while attending high school, he said. “Those are our original crew that actually helped us open [the first store in] Adams four years ago,” Heather King said.
The Lenox store may feature indoor seating, has a covered deck for the possibility of outdoor seating, and will offer No. Six Depot coffee, Jeff King said. “We’re very excited to be here,” he said.
The lease agreement was signed around the end of May and the Kings are busy adding their business’s branding to the décor. The new site will have a very similar set up to the Dalton store where patrons can watch the doughnuts being made and decorated through a glass divider. And, with choices such as Cinnamon Bun, S’mores, and Cookies and Cream—there will be lots of decorating to watch. Plus, the sweet treats can be customized to individual tastes.
As for everyone’s favorite?
“It’s really hard to say,” admitted Heather King. “If we only had 10 doughnuts, then we could very easily pick the favorite, but we have 32 [doughnuts on our regular menu] without customizing, so it’s really hard to narrow down what the most popular is.”
