Diet Buster

By ANDREW MCGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

Even after 36 years, there are still a few things to learn about Bunkers Dunkers, the beloved doughnut shop that ended 2016 on Travel Iowa’s list of “Iowa’s Best Donuts.”

For starters, 2017 will mark the 20th anniversary of Randy Bunkers’ rededication to Jefferson, the town that welcomed the Remsen native in 1980 with open arms and an insatiable appetite for crescent-shaped glazed doughnuts first concocted (given their shape, fittingly so) by a man of Syrian descent.

Just 28 at the time, Bunkers initially set up shop in a rickety little building on Lincoln Way that looked susceptible to a strong gust of wind.

As it turned out, the building that survived the hurricane-force winds that roared through Greene County in a 1989 derecho — the roof lifted a foot into the air and the front window blew out  — would eventually fall victim to progress.

And that’s when Jefferson could have lost Bunkers Dunkers for good.

Knowing that Bunkers Dunkers would be forced to relocate to make room for the Greene County Community Center, the Carroll Chamber of Commerce came calling, like sharks drawn to the smell of icing in the water.

“If you only knew how I felt,” Bunkers, now 64, recalled last week. “That was my security blanket, that little old building.”

In the end, Bunkers resisted Carroll’s offer, opting instead in 1997 to move into his present location on the east side of the Square, just a few doors down from where that Syrian guy with a catchy name, Saba Saba, once reigned as the sultan of local bakers.

“I can go anywhere and wave to people,” Bunkers said, citing what he loves best about Jefferson.

Still, he had his reservations.

“I said to Phyl, ‘I don’t think we’ll do as well up here,’ ” he remembers telling his wife and longtime co-worker, Phyllis.

“Proved me wrong,” he added.

The latest distinction awarded to Bunkers Dunkers by the Iowa Tourism Office as one of the state’s 15 best doughnut shops came as a surprise.

In fact, even after three decades of write-ups in the Des Moines Register and appearances on WHO radio — one morning at the old building, customers found themselves being greeted from behind the counter by Gov. Terry Branstad — everything still comes as a surprise to Bunkers.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would go like this,” he explained. “When somebody comes in that door, I should run around and kiss their feet.”

“I’m not the biggest religious person,” he said, “but I’m blessed.”

It just so happens he also has really great doughnuts.

Those decadent little breakfast treats have been used over the years to ensnare both a bear and a Cub — the trophy variety and the Hall of Fame kind.

No less than Ernie Banks, “Mr. Cub” himself, was a fan.

Bunkers first encountered the now-late baseball great in a line to get his autograph.

Banks seemed to take a genuine interest in Bunkers’ livelihood.

So much so that when Banks was scheduled to appear at an event in Des Moines, Bunkers made sure to get a box of doughnuts to him.

No one could have predicted what transpired next about 10 years ago.
Banks called Bunkers Dunkers.

“He said, ‘Randy, the best doughnut I’ve ever eaten. If you ever talk to my wife I’ll call you a liar, but I ate the whole dozen going back to Chicago,’” Bunkers said, relaying what’s clearly one of his most cherished stories.

As for the bear, it’s not talking — the doughnuts were used by someone on a hunting expedition as bait.

One can only surmise the bear died smiling.

Of course, some things about Bunkers Dunkers will never be known but to a select few.

What the doughnuts are fried in remains a closely guarded secret.

“We’ve had people call and offer to buy the recipes,” Bunkers said.

For Bunkers, a heart attack survivor who turns 65 on Jan. 16, the next big decision he’ll have to make is who to let in on the secret.

“That’s a big question,” Bunkers said, pondering retirement. “We do have some people interested in it.”

Specifically, nine different parties in the past year alone have expressed interest, he said.

“We’ve got something special,” he said. “There’s only been three of us. Let’s make it four.”

The recipes — not to mention the glass cases still in use — were Saba’s until his death at 74 in 1976, at which point Darrell Blackburn, a Saba employee of more than 40 years, safeguarded the secrets for another four years.

A Nebraska native, Saba had come to Jefferson in 1925 to start a bakery, originally called the Golden Krust Bakery, that was able to endure the Great Depression and an involuntary bankruptcy in 1934.

“If I’m half the man Saba was ...” Bunkers said. “I hear great stories about him.”

When Bunkers agreed to buy what by then was called Darrell’s Donuts — having to choose between available bakeries in Jefferson and Carroll — “He (Blackburn) was so happy when I said I was going to buy it,” Bunkers said, describing someone akin to an aging member of the Knights Templar, relieved that someone was willing to take up watch over the Holy Grail.

Bunkers’ dad always predicted the hours — the doughnuts start emerging from the fryer at 2 in the morning — would eventually catch up to him.

They never have.

Cutting every doughnut by hand has done worse.

“Right there,” Bunkers said, holding up his wrist. “Carpal tunnel.”

The last time RAGBRAI pedaled through Jefferson, Bunkers sold 800 dozen doughnuts and 500 dozen doughnut holes.

“I’d never seen that many doughnuts,” Bunkers said.

Today, Bunkers Dunkers delivers doughnuts every day except Sunday to nearly two dozen gas stations, grocery stores and the like as far away as Atlantic, all while resisting a shot at Krispy Kreme-style immortality.

“You lose your originality,” Phyllis Bunkers said of opening other Bunkers Dunkers stores.

It surely can’t be a coincidence that a Dunkin’ Donuts franchise in Carroll threw in the towel in November after just 17 months in business — Bunkers Dunkers supplies doughnuts to four locations in Carroll.

And yet, throughout it all, Bunkers never really left that little white building where it all started.

He suffered his heart attack in 2010, but his heart is arguably still there on Lincoln Way, in a building that hasn’t existed in 20 years.

“I probably look at this twice a month,” he said, referring to a painting on display in the shop by Jefferson artist Nick Friess of the original building.

The wood cutout in the front window of the Bunkers Dunkers mascot — a more edible cousin of the Michelin Man that adorns T-shirts — has now greeted multiple generations of regulars and out-of-towners alike.

Bunkers has resisted touching up the nicks that were inflicted on the sign back in 1989 when the derecho knocked it from the window.

In the years since, people have inquired about gluten-free and even (gasp) sugar-free doughnuts.

The thing is, the more times change and the more Bunkers Dunkers resists that change — they still don’t take debit cards — the bigger their legend grows.

“The thing about these doughnuts,” Bunkers said, “they’ve been everywhere. They’ve been to Afghanistan.”

In an increasingly generic America, there’s only one Bunkers Dunkers, faithfully laying waste to new year’s resolutions for 36 years and counting.

Bunkers still gets a chuckle remembering the time someone asked how many Weight Watchers points were in a doughnut.

“You don’t want to know,” he said.