Post #237261 by dogbytes on Sun, Jun 11, 2006 11:13 AM

Lou's is closing ~ have a kruller for me...

Inside Lou's Living Donut Museum in San Jose, each day 70-year-old Ralph Chavira and his two grown sons make 200 dozen doughnuts as a loyal line of customers stretches out the door.

Now that line is winding down the block, as three generations of customers learn Chavira has plans to close June 30.

For 50 years, Lou's has fought the Krispy Kreme-ization of America with patriotic zeal, insisting on cooking each doughnut by hand -- with its signature doughnut hole attached to the outside of the ring -- behind big glass windows so the customers can watch.

The doughnuts are legendary. Hospital patients have been known to sneak out in only their gowns to get them. When a former police chief banned officers from frequenting doughnut shops, some came anyway, in plain clothes and dark glasses. Former President Bill Clinton once dispatched his Secret Service agents from the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco to retrieve several dozen.

"Every time I get a jones for a doughnut, I come here," said Mike Dowell, 44, who waited on the sidewalk outside Lou's on Saturday with his 14-year-old son, Evan.

"There's a better ambiance here; it's no Dunkin' Donuts," Dowell said. "You can watch them being made, so you can see what's gonna harden your arteries."

Several forces have come together to make Chavira turn off the deep fryer. The family made a decision to close their shop so they could rally behind son Chuck, who is struggling with acute pancreatitis. Ralph Chavira also wants to be home more to care for his wife, who just had a hip operation.

Lastly, there's the infuriating parking issue. There was a time when customers could park for free outside Lou's. Now, permits are required on the residential side streets near the bakery, and the 30-minute parking zone outside the front door has been reduced to 12.

"We've sold too many $51 doughnuts," said Chavira, referring to the price of a ticket near his store.

Freeway construction across the street has taken away the spaces where school buses used to park and wait for schoolchildren to return from the Children's Discovery Museum up the block. Now those regular busloads of young customers are gone.

Customer Yolanda Molinari is so passionate about the doughnuts that she's vowing to keep the secret recipe in production for whoever buys the shop from the Chaviras. She took a job at Lou's two months ago, and has been learning to make the doughnuts ever since.

"It's a tradition San Jose can't lose," she said Saturday, as she dunked a batch with clear glaze.

World War II fighter pilot Lou Ades opened Lou's Donuts in 1955 in the Chaviras' neighborhood and hired Chavira's sons when they were high school students. Ralph Chavira bought the business in 1981.

He plays Fifties music and adorns the walls with military memorabilia. There are pictures of relatives in Army and Navy uniforms, military ships and the Chavira family posing with former 49ers quarterback Joe Montana.

The doughnut selection depends on what just came out of the kitchen. It might be peanut-crumb-coconut or, if the customer is lucky, a chocolate glaze made with such expensive cocoa that it's only available on Thursdays and Saturdays.

Often, business travelers call ahead and reserve multiple boxes to take with them on flights out of San Jose International Airport.

The Pertner family of San Jose Randy, Kim and daughter Danica saw Lou's Living Donut Museum on the news and decided to give it a try Saturday.

"It's terrible all these mom-and-pop places are closing," Kim Pertner said. "It seems like it's harder and harder to find that family atmosphere."

The Pertners took a bite, and agreed there was something different about the texture of a Lou's doughnut.

"What's in these?" Randy Pertner said.

Back in the kitchen, Chuck Chavira let the secret slip: mashed potatoes.

Every week, the Chavira clan peels, boils and mashes a small mountain of potatoes to add to a mix of organic flour, eggs and shortening.

"That's what makes them three times more dense than a regular doughnut," Chuck Chavira said.