After serving Champaign for 12 years, Pandamonium Doughnuts is closing its doors for good. James Kyung turned a hobby into an enterprise in 2013 when he first started selling his doughnuts at the Champaign farmer’s market.
“It wasn’t until that first farmer’s market day that it officially became a business,” he said. “And even then we didn’t really see this as a long term, like actual business at the time.”
Kyung and his wife Marci started out making doughnuts in their kitchen and gifting them to family and friends. In 2014, the Kyungs expanded their business into a food truck and pop-up shops.
“More people would show up and the lines would be like around the block. And it was like, how do these people even know we exist, let alone come to this random pop-up?” Kyung said.
The success of the pop-ups compelled Kyung to quit his job at 27 years old and work on Pandamonium full-time. He opened a brick and mortar location in 2017.
Pandamonium Doughnuts stood out in Champaign thanks to their unique flavors and homemade recipes that all came from scratch. Their flavors ranged from standard doughnuts such as an original glaze to peanut butter and jelly and everything in between.
“All the glazes, all the donuts are made from scratch. No premixes, no pre-made stuff, nothing frozen,” Kyung said. “And that is important because in the industry now, whether you’re a small mom and pop shop to Dunkin Donuts or whatever, most of them are made using premixes.”
Kyung said their business made an impact on the community, because of the memories people made with their product. He also said since they announced their closing, many customers have shared their experiences with the business and why it was important to them.
“Because we have a lot of students, they would say like ‘I would get your donuts after my first 8 a.m. class. It’s my go to and kind of helps me make it through the day,’” Kyung said. “Or ‘this is where my partner and I had our first date, we came and got donuts together’ and things like that.”
It’s been a bittersweet experience for Kyung to hear these stories as he prepares to shut the shop down.
“A lot of our regulars have been coming to us for 12 years, you know, so we’ve seen their kids grow up, we’ve seen them get married, we’ve seen them retire. We’ve seen them move and come back,” he said. “So it’s like we’ve been part of their lives in a way.”
Kyung and his wife now have two small children and decided it was the best option for their family to spend more time at home, instead of in the shop. Kyung said it was a difficult decision to close the business, but it felt like the universe was telling them it was time.
“We only have so much time in the day, and running a business takes up a lot of time. Having a family takes up a lot of time,” Kyung said. “So we finally got to that point where we had to make a decision.”