Heavenly Donut Company

Heavenly Donut Company opened its doors in Birmingham, Alabama on January 23, 2013, the result of a leap of faith by founders Kimberly and Brock Beiersdoerfer, who decided to start a donut shop despite having no prior experience in the food industry. Through a local mentor, Dave Upton Sr., the couple connected with Don DeWeese of Gibson’s Donuts in Memphis, Tennessee, and Brock trained under DeWeese, a twenty-year donut-making veteran, before the shop opened. DeWeese later traveled to Birmingham to help train the new shop’s staff, a detail that says a lot about how seriously the founders took getting the recipes right before opening.

The shop’s storefront sits on Cahaba River Road in Birmingham, and the daily lineup covers the full range of classic donut styles, all handcrafted on site. Regular glazed donuts start at a dollar fifty, with other glazed and iced varieties such as chocolate glazed, caramel, strawberry, maple, blueberry cake, and sour cream old fashioned priced slightly higher. Topped donuts finished with sprinkles, M&Ms, Reese’s Cup, Oreo, or coconut sit at the next price tier, and premium options like the maple bacon donut, at $2.35, and a French toast donut round out the top of the menu.

Beyond standard donuts, the shop bakes kolaches daily until 10:30 a.m. for $4.25, apple fritters at $4.50, cinnamon twists, cinnamon rolls, and donut holes. On Saturdays, the shop adds beignets to the case from 7 a.m. until noon, sold four at a time for $5.99 or by the dozen, a nod to the founders’ New Orleans-influenced training. A rotating donut of the day appears Tuesday through Friday for customers who want to try something outside the regular lineup.

Hours run later than a typical donut shop, with Tuesday through Friday service from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. The shop is closed on Mondays. A drive-thru window operates in the early morning hours on the days the shop is open, giving commuters a fast option before work, and the shop has since opened a second Birmingham-area location at The Edge in Homewood, giving customers another spot to reach the same recipes.

Beyond the storefront, Heavenly Donut Company also runs a food truck that appears at events around the Birmingham area, extending the business beyond its Cahaba River Road location. Regular customers can also join the shop’s Heavenly Rewards Club, which offers points toward free items just for signing up along with a birthday discount, another sign of how the shop has grown a loyal following since that first 2013 leap of faith.

For visitors unfamiliar with a couple of the specialty items, a kolache is a filled pastry with roots in Czech baking, traditionally wrapped or topped around a sweet or savory center, while a beignet is the square, powdered-sugar-dusted fried dough associated with New Orleans, which lines up with Brock Beiersdoerfer’s training under a mentor steeped in that tradition. As a family owned, locally owned business that offers takeout and stays open later than most donut shops in the city, Heavenly Donut Company has built its following on training taken seriously from day one and a menu that goes well beyond a basic glazed ring. For visitors who associate donut shops with early-morning-only hours, the extended evening hours here stand out, making it one of the few places in Birmingham to satisfy a donut craving well after breakfast has ended. Between the Cahaba River Road storefront, the Homewood location, and the food truck’s rotating event schedule, the Beiersdoerfers have built several different ways for Birmingham-area customers to reach the same recipes Brock trained on in Memphis before the shop ever opened its doors.