Here’s the latest on the Parlor Doughnuts shop opening in west Wichita
A little more than a year ago, local franchisees shared that they were bringing the Parlor Doughnuts chain to Wichita. In December, they announced that they were taking over the old Hurts Donut space at 7010 W. 21st St. At the time, they said they’d likely be open by spring.
Progress on the building has taken longer than expected, but an end is finally in sight, said Byron Smith, one of the franchisees. The Parlor Doughnuts signs recently went up on the building, and Smith said that the shop is on track to open in mid-September.
This week, Smith and general manager William Harrington gave me a tour of the new shop, which will specialize in layered doughnuts — doughnut-meets-croissant creations more commonly known by the trademarked word “cronut.”
The shop’s signature tile floors are installed. The espresso machine and the display cabinets are in place. And murals have been painted on the walls. When I was there on Monday, the shop’s furniture was scattered about the dining room, and an electrician was installing pendant lights.
Smith, a local real estate/equity investor in Wichita who is one of three people in the franchise group, said that the shop will look pretty put together by next week.
Getting the new doughnut shop open has taken extra time, he said, because of a shortage of supplies. Parlor Doughnuts, a chain based in Indiana, is opening new shops so quickly that its custom-made floor tile had run out of stock, and the wait for other custom furniture pieces has become long.
“There was an extreme, overwhelming need for Parlors, and... they weren’t ready for it,” he said. “Now that’s where we have the issues we’re having now where it’s starting to become a very sought after franchise, but they can’t keep up.”
Once open, Wichita’s Parlor Doughnuts will have a drive-through and a space for dine-in customers. Its menu will offer more than two dozen flavors of layered doughnuts as well as coffee drinks and breakfast items such as acai bowls, avocado toast, breakfast tacos and breakfast sandwiches.
Harrington said that he thinks Wichita will like Parlor because it offers not only unique doughnuts but also high-quality breakfast items. Few other doughnut shops, he said, do both — or do both well. (His favorite is the breakfast tacos.)
Wichita has been excited about the shop, he said, and the frenzy seemed to grow once the sign was installed. People had been frequently walking up to the doors and peeking in or pulling up to the drive-through window to try to order. To help slow that down, owners installed orange cones blocking the entrance to the parking lot and stopped turning the neon sign on at night.
Smith said that many locals have tried Parlor Doughnuts while vacationing in places like Destin, Florida, and Branson, Missouri.
“That’s what’s allowing a lot of people to be intrigued, knowing that Parlor does exist and what it is,” he said.
The franchisees plan to eventually open three Parlor Doughnuts in the Wichita area. Their franchise agreement requires them to open their second local shop within nine months of the first one opening.
They’ve been looking at various properties in College Hill and in near-Wichita suburbs but haven’t settled on one yet, he said.
The original Parlor opened in Evansville, Indiana, in 2019 as a coffee shop that sold doughnuts. But the doughnuts were so popular that they soon became the focus of the business.
They feature a flaky exterior, a soft interior and lots of different toppings. The menu features flavors such as french toast, maple bacon, cookies n’ cream, peanut butter cup, churro, and raspberry pistachio. The shop always has at least a dozen standard flavors in stock as well as a few seasonal offerings.
I’ll let you know when the franchisees choose an official opening date for the Parlor Doughnuts on West 21st Street.
This story was originally published August 26, 2025 at 11:47 AM.
.jpg)