screenshot via CBSLA
Patrons of a local, family-owned donut shop in California have rallied together to consistently buy out the store’s inventory so the friendly owner can tend to his sick wife.
According to various reports, patrons of Donut City in Seal Beach, California, have been buying a surplus of donuts in an effort to allow owner John Chhan to close shop early and head home to his ill wife Stella.
The shop, which is located south of Los Angeles, opens at 4:30 a.m. PST and is usually sold out by 7:30 a.m. PST.
Steven O’Fallon, a regular customer of Donut City, said that is was “heartbreaking to hear her [Stella Chhan’s] misfortune” so he (and other customers) and simply returning the kindness that the Chhans have provided over the years.
via NBC News:
For the past 28 years, the couple and their baker have gotten to the shop at 2 a.m. PT every day to bake the doughnuts. They then open to the community by 4:30 a.m., seven days a week. It’s a routine they’ve more or less kept to since opening the store in 1990, a decade after the husband and wife arrived in the U.S. as refugees from Cambodia.
Marc Loopesko, a resident of Seal Beach for 22 years, has been frequenting the shop for nearly two decades. He was one of the hundreds of locals who saw the post and decided to take action.
Loopesko decided that in addition to buying doughnuts, the community could offer the idea of starting a GoFundMe page for the Chhans but the shop owner politely declined, saying that he would rather have extra time with his wife.
Thankfully, Chhan told NBC News that his wife Stella is “recovering well” and that he hopes to have her back in the shop “shortly.”