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Today, Heav’nly Donuts is a successful family-owned business, serving up an acclaimed array of pastries, breakfast sandwiches, bagels, and beverages from 16 locations throughout northeastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. But before the yogurt cups, breakfast sandwiches, and the everything bagels, there were the donuts.

The shop began in Methuen in 1975, when Greek immigrant George Saragas bought a small, closed-down Mister Donut to open his own bakery. The original premise was simple: good donuts, good coffee, good prices. The work, however, was hard—Saragas often slept on a 50-pound bag of flour in the back room so he could spring into action before dawn, rolling out and hand-cutting donuts for early-morning customers. His wife, Elaine, worked by his side.

Eventually, the family bought a house in Andover, but the kids, Jimmy and Effie, still spent most of their time at the donut shop, where their parents set up a play area for them among the bags of flour and rolling pins out back. As they grew, they became more involved in the family business, helping out around the shop.

“Those kids saw it all—day and night shifts, flour-covered floors, and the steady rhythm of the donut shop,” Saragas says. “They didn’t just grow up in our home—they were raised in the heart of Heav’nly Donuts, and that’s something special.”

The family members weren’t the only ones for whom the shop was a special place. It soon became a local institution, where regulars were often given extra donuts, and community groups could count on donations. During the Blizzard of 1978, George Saragas recalls, people trudged through drifts of snow to reach the store for a warm donut during a trying time.

“I’d hand them a fresh, warm honey dip, and they’d look at me like I was handing them pure gold,” she says. “That’s a memory I’ll carry forever.”

After Jimmy graduated from college, he returned to the business, helping to expand beyond Methuen. Effie’s children are now old enough to work in the shops themselves. Today, the menu includes the classic donuts as well as bagels, muffins, snacks, coffee drinks, and frozen beverages, as the business continues to evolve to keep up with the times.

It’s the kind of attention to quality and community that might help them make it another 50 years.

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