20 Hours to Go

The founder, Vernon Rudolph, worked for his uncle, Ishmael Armstrong, who purchased a secret recipe for yeast-raised doughnuts and a shop on Broad Street in Paducah, Kentucky, from Joseph LeBeouf of Lake Charles, Louisiana. Rudolph began selling the yeast doughnuts in Paducah and delivered them on his bicycle. The operation was moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and other family members joined to meet the customer demand. The first store in the nation with the Krispy-Kreme name opened on Charlotte Pike in 1933.^[4] Rudolph sold his interest in the Nashville store and in 1938 opened a doughnut shop in Winston-Salem, and began selling to groceries and then directly to individual customers. The first store in North Carolina was located in a rented building on South Main Street in Winston-Salem in what is now called historic Old Salem. The Krispy Kreme logo was designed by Benny Dinkins, a local architect.