Tom and Sons Donuts news

back to news

NEWS
No holes barred
By GEOFF MATTHEWS, Ottawa Sun

Fans swear local doughnut-maker's tasty
wares are the best all-round

IT'S 2 A.M. on a weekday morning but sleep is the farthest thing from Tom De Dominicis' mind. In his upside-down world where night is day and the afternoon is for sleeping, it's deadline time for De Dominicis, and if he misses it by even a few minutes, hundreds of hungry Ottawan's are going to be disappointed.

Every night he and his son turn out doughnuts by the dozens in their bakery, tucked away in the back of a non-descript building in a west-end industrial park, where a small sign reading Tom & Sons Donuts Ltd. explains the sweet smell in the early morning air.

De Dominicis claims his doughnuts are the best in the city, and after trying a couple of the house specialties, it's tough to disagree.

From Boston creams to apple fritters the size of Frisbees, jam-filled to double chocolate, they make them all -- about 36 different varieties according to De Dominicis's son Enio, who shares cooking duties with his father.

Let the national chains churn out their prefab doughnuts by the truckload, says the elder De Dominicis. Once customers have tasted one of his products, they're hooked.

The secret is in the ingredients (the list of which is guarded as closely as the colonel's recipe for chicken) and how the dough is handled, he says.

Each night begins the same way, with either Tom or Enio pouring out the pounds of flour, sugar, yeast and other ingredients which will form the basis for all the sweet treats. Kneading, slicing, proofing, deep frying and decorating take them into the wee hours of the morning, after which the two men load up their vans and head out on delivery sometime around 5 a.m.

CUSTOMERS LINED UP
Local hospitals, the cafeterias on Parliament Hill, downtown delis and smaller grocery stores all stock sweet treats from Tom & Sons.

They dare not be late on their rounds, since many of the customers who have become hooked on De Dominicis doughnuts time their morning visits to the delis, cafes and restaurants stocking the products to coincide with arrival of the delivery trucks. "At some places they're lined up when we get there," says Tom.

He has been preparing pastries in the National Capital Region since 1978, when a national chain moved him to Ottawa to run one of its stores. By the early 80s, he had his own place in Gatineau before moving back to the Ontario side, where for 12 years he, along with his wife and two sons, ran a retail shop on Kanata's Hazeldean Rd.

Today it's strictly a wholesale operation, although they do have a few customers who call a day in advance to order a couple of dozen doughnuts for pickup the next morning.

Tom and Enio do the cooking, while daughter Lydia looks after the books, the ordering and a hundred other daily tasks. Wife Elisa comes in once in a while to help out, but generally leaves it up to the rest of the family and a few part-timers who join in when things get hectic.

140-150 DOZEN A DAY
On an average day they produce 140-150 dozen doughnuts, about 90 dozen apple fritters and 60-70 dozen muffins. Enio figures they could probably increase the doughnut production to about 200 dozen per night in their current facility, but neither of them seems interested in expanding it much beyond its current scope.

"It's a good living for us," said Tom, who will turn 61 in a few weeks and has no intention of retiring. "I'm having too much fun doing what I am doing."

Some of their products have made it to distant points of call, including a dozen doughnuts a customer picked up to share with friends in the Dominican Republic.

"He told me when he came back we should open up a franchise down there, because they were so popular," says Tom.

WON APPLE FRITTER BET
Another customer had a wager with a friend in British Columbia over whose city had Canada's best apple fritters, he said. "The guy came in here on his way to the airport and picked some up to take with him," said Tom. "He won the bet."

The elder De Dominicis left his native Italy in 1964, moving to Brantford where he tried his hand at a number of occupations, including steelmaking and landscaping.

But it was in the pastry business that he found happiness. "You have to love what you do," says Tom. "If your heart's not in it, you're never going to do your best."

It takes a certain type of person to be successful in the business, agrees Enio. "You have to be able to settle into a routine which means getting up in the middle of the night and working long hours." But for both of them, the stresses of running the business are worth it.

"Sometimes a customer will tell us he has found a cheaper supplier," says Tom, "so I tell them go ahead and try them. They always come back. Nobody can match our quality."