About Us

My name is Lester Chastain and my brother and I (Ed) have a combined 60 years of experience making and creating handmade doughnuts by scratch in our doughnut shop and a variety of bakeries, constantly testing and perfecting our doughnut making art. I started making doughnuts at age 15 in my uncle’s bakery.

Our objective: to provide quality information and valuable donut training about the doughnut business so your only option isn’t just to open a doughnut franchise and use the company’s baking methods. Instead, we demonstrate expert doughnut making techniques for both yeast and cake doughnuts. Our primary objective is to help people enter the donut business by offering donut business consultation and donut training with attention to taking the local donut market by storm with our custom created donut lines and products.

We have owned and operated multiple restaurants and donut shops and have assisted many people to enter the donut business. I made my first donut w hen I was 15 working in my Uncle Charles’s donut shop. My how time flies!

Our uncle Charles learned the trade well before the advent of premixes and frozen donuts. He was trained by the old-time bakers of yesteryear, and he passed his knowledge on to us.

Thanks to uncle’s Charles connections in the donut industry, I continued my training at multiple shops in the Sacramento, California area. I paid my dues until eventually I was hired by Mel Bainbridge of Donut World, a large production donut shop with a vast variety of donuts. At 19, I was the youngest lead baker in company history as I worked with some of the best donut makers of the time.

Donuts are Americana at their best. Who doesn’t love a warm, fresh, donut? Donuts have been good to me and they can be good to you, too.

Our hobbies include the internet, billiards and my love of camping on my gold claim, dredging for gold 3-4 weeks out of the year and fishing. Metal detecting for Relics is fun too “there is so much history for the finding.”

I work hard and I play hard. The people I know that are successful exemplify the characteristics of the donut maker, they show up everyday, they go in early, they stay late and they are productive while they are there.

My suggestion is to adopt the characteristics of the donut maker: show up every day, go in early, stay late and be productive while you are there. Next time one of your acquaintances starts complaining about their jobs or careers do what I do. Look them in the eye and tell them, “Take control, be a donut maker.”