The soft aroma of fresh doughnuts fills the air, mixing with the smell of coffee at Chattanooga's Julie Darling Donuts, a venture by businessman Kent Davis on the eclectic North Shore.
Opened Feb. 12, the Wi-Fi-equipped doughnut shop sports a '50s retro theme and an open design that lets customers take a look behind the scenes.
"I've never done a restaurant before, but if I have a good product and a good service, it'll all work," Mr. Davis said. "I think it's something we needed on this side of the river."
He didn't open the store in an effort to get rich quickly, but to bring back memories from his childhood, he said.
"People come in because they smelled it, and they get a doughnut, and they're happier," Mr. Davis said. "It's a fun business."
He has always liked to cook in his spare time, he said, and he first stumbled across the idea of opening a doughnut shop while cooking a batch of doughnuts for his mother.
"The first batch I fried, my mom said, 'I remember when I was a child, and we would go to Sarah Jane's Doughnuts on McCallie,' and as she relayed this story it brought back so many memories and emotions that I realized this was something I wanted to give people," he said.
The decor, including posters of John Wayne, Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, gives customers "warm fuzzies when they walk in," he said.
In addition to donating her name to the shop, Julie "Darling" Davis also runs the store's community-outreach-as-advertising program, primarily through a frequently updated Facebook page that already boasts close to 1,000 fans.
"What I did was invite my Facebook friends, because honestly no one knew that we were doing it," Mrs. Davis said. "We started off with that, then I asked my friends to start telling people about it and it grew from there."
Mrs. Davis also offers weekly "Facebook specials" for online fans who buy doughnuts on traditionally slow days such as Mondays and Tuesdays.
"I guess the biggest thing is word of mouth," she said.
Mrs. Davis plans to expand the store's promotional campaigns during the summer, raising awareness with a doughnut eating contest and other events.
"I would love the doughnut shop to be someplace you hang out with the free Wi-Fi, so if we can make it a place people want to go and be a part of something happening there, that would be exciting for me," she said.