Você está na página 1de 3

By Scott Holbert

A castle has stood in the heart of Parkersburg since 1973. JR’s Donut Castle has been
an institution for many residents for most and in many cases, all, of their lives. It’s the place
where young and old go to have a chat over coffee or pick up a tasty pastry before bustling off
to another busy day at the office. No one is as uniquely qualified to understand the legacy of the
famous bakery as the current owner and son of the eponymous JR, Aaron Parsons.
From as early as age ten, Parsons worked at his dad’s popular donut shop and building
experience in the intricacies of the donut business. Continuing to work through grade school,
junior high and then high school, he had become an old hand in the donut business by the time
he graduated. By then, Parsons had already started to take on some of the management duties
and it wouldn’t be surprising if moving from what was a position as a long time employee to a
more managerial role was difficult for the youngster. But Parsons didn’t find this to be the case
due to the close relationships within the business.
“Her boss grew up in front of her eyes,” Parsons explained relating the words of one
longtime worker.
When he got to college at Fairmont State, Parsons already had a bit of experience under
his belt in managing a small business, so taking a class in Small Business Management was a
bit of a surreal experience for him.
He reminisced, “It was so weird to be, literally, a small business manager and it doesn’t
relate at all to what you have to bring to an actual [business].”
Parsons was committed to getting an education but soon the needs of his family at JR’s
drew him back to Parkersburg. Luckily, moving back home to help with the family business
didn’t mean foregoing the desire to continue his education. Parsons cited the new availability of
the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree at WVU Parkersburg along with his
family’s desire for him to return home to help with the business as his reason to return to the
Parkersburg area. Parsons also expressed that he felt comfortable coming back home because
he believed that the quality of education at WVU Parkersburg was on a similar level and he
would still be able to achieve his life goals going to college locally.
“With my Dad and Mom running the place, they asked me to come back to help out.”
Because he had been raised as the son of a business owner and learned practical
business skills, it may seem like Parsons wouldn’t have much to learn from the theory taught at
a university but, in spite of his business experience, Parsons took away some key skills from the
experience.
“It helped me learn how to manage people and be more of a PR person,” he said.
However, he added, “You can’t run a business with a degree, I think you need more than just a
degree.”
It wasn’t long before Parsons needed to apply both theory and practice. In early 2016,
Parsons took over the family business as the primary operator and, with it, responsibility for the
employees and patrons of the shop. Tragically, a scant ten months after he took over as the
primary operator at JRs, his father died suddenly and Parsons was left without a mentor to
guide him as a fledgling business owner. Parsons was up to the challenge, however, and has
helmed the business for the last two years. As a father of two and husband, Parsons quickly
found that small business ownership comes with a monumental investment of time.
“Like a doctor, you’re on call sometimes 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Parsons
explained.
And it wasn’t just the time investment that kept you up at night. The donut business is a
fiercely competitive market with both local and chain restaurants always nipping at your heels.
Even supermarkets have gotten into the donut game with their bakery offerings. So, how does
one small shop in the heart of Parkersburg create lasting loyalty in their patrons? Just a darn
good donut according to Parsons.
“Not to sound cocky but we’ve won best donut in town for like eleven years in a row. You
keep giving to customers what they’re actually wanting. Let them tell us what they want.”
Sounds easy, right?
But for Parsons, a crisis came just shortly after taking over the shop that threatened to
tear down the cornerstone of a successful donut shop: the recipe. In 2015, the FDA issued a
decree that food manufacturers must stop using partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) within three
years. PHOs had been found to significantly increase health risks for heart disease which the
ban was intended to lower. Unfortunately, the well intended ban had the unfortunate side effect
of causing a change to the taste of the donuts that JR’s was producing. Replacement oils that
complied with the regulations resulted in what Parsons described as somewhat like a wonton.
Complaints were rolling in with many angry customers blaming the newly-crowned donut
king for skimping on the ingredients. When explaining the issue with federal regulations didn’t
seem to help, Parsons was in a quandary. Now trapped between a regulation with which he
needed to comply and customers that were on the verge of taking their business elsewhere,
Parsons went back to basics. Wanting to recapture the taste that had been in high demand for
more than 40 years, he got to work in the kitchen prototyping new recipes. With one key
ingredient unusable, the task was almost insurmountable.
However, after a lot of hard work with vendors and testing products, he finally found a
taste that got back to that delicious JR’s quality that the bakery had built its reputation on. The
Castle was back in business.
But recapturing past success doesn’t prepare your business for the future.. Parsons
knows this better than anyone noting that “second generation businesses fail at a way higher
percentage than even first generation businesses.” Statistics for family businesses are dire.
According to a Harvard Business Review article, “some 70% of family-owned businesses fail or
are sold before the second generation gets a chance to take over.” It further explains that the
percentage of businesses that remain active for a third generation of family to take ownership is
a meager ten percent.
Not wanting to become a victim of complaceny, Parsons has some ideas for keeping his
bakery relevant including adding more parking space and adding home delivery and also
confirmed his willingness to look at adding an online ordering system if he felt his customers
wanted it.
“I realize that everyone wants to use an app.[Even I] don’t call my pizza order in, I use
an app.”
It’s been a long journey from a ten year old youngster that wanted to go to work at his
dad’s bakery to being a father to two children himself and now the owner and operator of the
bakery nearly twenty years later. But, Parsons has committed himself to running a flourishing
business and maintaining the decades old legacy of the shop.
“If you won’t give a hundred percent of yourself, you don’t need to run a business.”

Você também pode gostar