Beth's Donut Shop

Last Saturday was the end of an era for the Tangsombatvisit family. After 26 years of operation, Beth’s Donut Shop finally closed it’s doors to the public once and for all.


Fixtures at 263 Calaveras, Milpitas, CA.

For 26 years, my parents ran a little donut shop in Milpitas. For 26 years Beth’s Donut Shop opened its doors at 5AM (or 6AM, the few times my parents overslept) to sell hot fresh donuts to customers. After 26 years, my parents decided it was time to hang up the old rolling pin and go into retirement. They’ve actually been trying to sell the shop for a little over two years now, so when they got a reasonable offer two months ago, they jumped on it and didn’t look back. On Saturday, we closed the door to Beth’s Donuts for the last time and we took down the large banner that overlooked Calaveras Blvd for over two decades.


The last batches of donuts made at Beth's Donuts

The shop went through good times, bad times and interesting times. From it’s initial years (which i don’t know much about since i was very young), to the dot com boom which were the peak earning years for Beth’s (Milpitas was just on the outskirt of Silicon Valley and the we definitely capitalized on the free-spending ways of the period), to the bubble bursting (which caused a almost 200% drop in profit), to the whole health craze/fad which caused people to stop wanting to eat donuts, to the days which saw Beth's transform into sort of a bazaar which along with selling donuts, sold all sorts of little knick-knacks like shoes, chips, jerky, seeds, to these end days as Beth's gracefully winds down.



The family comes to celebrate the last day of Beth's Donut. We all get chance to make donuts one last time.

It’s hard to to say what Beth’s Donuts meant to my family over the years. From a practicality standpoint, it allowed my family to live a slightly above average lifestyle, we were never rich, but we definitely had it better than what is probably expected from two people who did not finish college. It allowed my parents to purchase two houses, a couple cars and it put three kids through private schools and into college. My family owes a lot the shop and to the customers that bought from us, I will forever be thankful for that.



All this did not come cheap. My parents worked their tails off at the shop. Running a donut shop is not easy, my parents had to wake up before the crack of dawn. The shop opened at 5AM each day. Most days they would get up between 2-3 AM and work nonstop until noon. During our peak business years, because business was so good, sometimes they would have to work 14-16 hour days. These were they days when we literally made donuts all night long from midnight to dawn. They would do this 365 days a year, seven days a week. The only times the shop closed was for major holidays (like Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, Independence Day etc) and when my grandma died the shop closed for a couple days. In that 26 years, my mom and dad never took a vacation longer than 2 days.


Dad and Mom. Superstars. Heroes.

When me and my brothers were old enough, we started working at the shop as well. During the summers we would work in the shop on Fridays and Saturdays, and then during the school year, we would work Saturdays. We would keep the same schedule as my parents, waking up really early at like 4 or 5 and then working till noon. This was fun and exciting the first day. After that, it was hard work. I think if we’re all honest, all my bros would say that they hated the experience, but am thankful for it because of the life lessons that we learned from it. Working at the shop molded each of us, all in different, but mostly good ways.


Edmund and Anthony working the fryer and the roller for the last time.

We learned about the merits of hard work and we learn to appreciate people who did that. We learned to be resourceful with what we had, and not complain about what we did not have. We learned to respect people if we wanted to be respected ourselves. We learned what it means to be smart with our finances. We learned how valuable sleep is. But I think above all, we learned about sacrifice, especially the sacrifice parents make for their children out of love.


My parents.

The story of Beth’s Donut Shop is a story about my parents as much as it is about the shop. Looking back, I sometimes wonder how my parents were able to keep the shop up and running for that many years. The turnover and failure rate for the restaurant business is pretty high, especially for small businesses. We survived two economic recessions. And it’s not like Beth’s Donuts reinvented itself every couple years. We’ve literally been selling the same donuts and coffee for the last 26 years. The shop interior has aged a lot as well. The selling area was last repainted about fifteen years ago. Wear and tear is fairly noticeable. In it’s later years, Beths’ Donut definitely was a looking a little worn down.


Old friends : Mixer and Fryer.

But somehow, despite all of this, the donut shop survived. The customers that my parents had were very loyal to the shop. And I think this is the biggest testament to my parents, how loyal some of the customers were.

Some of the stories are pretty amazing. The Best Western down the street has been ordering from us for the last fifteen years or so. We’ve have had Chinese restaurant cooks that would come to the shop for a coffee, donut and a smoke each morning before clocking in. The town senior citizen center has been ordering from us each Saturday for the last ten years. We’ve sold donuts to kids that when they grew up, they would order from the shop for their workplace. We had customers who lived in Milpitas, went away, and every time they traveled back to the city, they would stop by to say hi and order donuts. My favorite story is the one customer that we sold donuts to as a kid, and my parents watched him grow up and go away to college, every time he visited home from college, he would make it a point to come to the shop and order stuff.

So there it is. Twenty six years. I wondered how i would feel with the store closing down. I think my dad summed up all of our feelings with this text he sent to all of us the morning after.

Me and mom thx u all for help us clean the store and celebrate our retirement from the donut shop. It is tough to say good bye after 26 years. Well i am sure we will miss it just a little bit.

And it’s true. Typing this blog up and remember the past... I will admit, I miss the shop... maybe more than a little. It was hard work, it was at times dirty work, the shop was small, dingy, run down, and not the cleanest, but dammit, it was our shop, our property, the lifeline of the family for so many years. The new owners are gonna convert the place into an Indian fast food place and the more I think about it, the more that saddens me. I guess it’s a sign that Beth’s is gone forever... It would have been nice if new owners would have kept the place a donut shop...

And that's it. Goodbye Beth's Donuts. You will be missed. I will close it out with our last ever yelp review. Which i think sums it up nicely.