Homer Simpson’s ‘Donut Mania’ Spreads to Montreal

In Montreal, journalist Louis-Philippe Messier travels mostly on the run, his desk hidden in his backpack, in search of interesting objects and people. He appeals to everyone and is interested in all spheres of life in this city chronicle.

The donut shop, which opened three weeks ago in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood, can bake a maximum output of 5,000 donuts a day, but that’s not enough to meet the demand for its baked goods that’s causing The Simpsons Or Sesame Street.

I arrive and, like everyone else, I stand at the end of the line. Because there has always been a line in front of the Homer store since it opened on March 25th.

Inside, buildings like dozens of empty boxes stand here and there, stacked and ready for use.

Behind the counter, in the small kitchen, no one suffers from boredom. The phone rings constantly. The fryer timer beeps regularly.

This is excitement. The ten employees present wear uniforms with the slogan crossed out: “Here, take our donuts”…which is not true!

The donut shop processes about 200 kilograms of dough a day, seven days a week.

“It starts at one in the morning. We have to get production going or we won’t deliver. It’s been that way since day one when we sold everything. We quickly realized we needed to maximize productivity,” Terry Axiotis tells me as he fries donuts.

Culinary madness

Surprised and happy by the scale of Homer’s success, Mr. Axiotis tells me that he has already experienced a kitchen even crazier than his own: “I worked at McDonald’s in La Ronda in the 1990s… and it was even more intense !”

Now that he has trained the employee to arrive a little after midnight, he can afford to “loaf” until 3 am.

During the interview in the kitchen, I was still on edge.

“Sorry! I’ll bring Cookie Monsters!” – the employee writes with a tray of fresh blue donuts. I step aside to let her pass.

Cashier Naomi can check out a box of 12 for a customer who has been waiting for these themed donuts. Sesame Street.

“Ugh! It’s heavy! – the man exclaims, picking up the box.

“You’ll have to wait five minutes for the glazed donuts,” the cashier then points out to a customer who, while I’m talking to her, steps back and knocks over a stack of boxes… which fall. Oops!

“Sometimes one client orders sports teams and leaves with five tens at once. We don’t set limits because the people who buy such large quantities come from far away,” explains Mr. Axiotis.

Some customers come from Victoriaville and even Trois-Rivieres for these donuts.

Donut designer

To offer delicious and fun donuts, Homer’s turns to “donut designer” Zineb Benmousse.

“I can’t wait for summer because I’m going to make recipes with Quebec fruit,” M tells me.^{to me} Benmoussa, who presents me with his “doughnut of the day” with blueberries and graham cracker crumbs.

The “Donut Designer” has also developed recipes for cotton candy, Smarties, Nutella, crème brûlée… and she also plans to use typical Montreal cookies like Whippets.

I resist my carnivorous instinct and pass on the donut covered in golden bacon bits and instead try the Homer donut shop brand with pink glaze.

It is juicy and very soft. The taste of powdered sugar melts in your mouth. No teeth needed.

After closing at 5 p.m., a crew arrives just to clean: “My staff are so tired from a day’s work that I can’t ask them to do any extra cleaning…” explains Mr. Axiotis.

One thing is for sure: if you want to make sure you get the donuts of your choice, or donuts at all, don’t show up too late.