One-hundred and seventeen forgotten boxes sat in the back of the Northwest 13th Street Dunkin’ Donuts on Saturday morning.
Inside them was an array of chocolate, Boston Kreme, blueberry cake and double-chocolate cake — the products of a seven-hour Friday night bakery shift.
But the $989 order was never paid for or picked up.
Jeremy Cyr, area manager for Dunkin’ Donuts in Gainesville, woke up to 1,404 doughnuts but no customer.
“I was initially shocked,” Cyr said. “You gotta be kidding me.”
The customer cited Gatornationals when he or she made the order, Cyr said. Cyr usually takes down the customer’s contact and payment information for big orders, but this time he didn’t.
Chris Lawyer, the media relations manager for the National Hot Rod Association, which hosts Gatornationals, said he knew nothing about the order and that it wasn’t the NHRA’s.
The store held a BOGO-dozen deal to get rid of the surplus doughnuts. By 3 p.m. Saturday, about 70 dozen doughnuts remained, Cyr said.
“I’m going to carry these doughnuts to the dumpster, or I could take them to someone who could use them,” Cyr recalled saying to himself.
So, he donated them to St. Francis House.
Because of the mystery customer, doughnuts were eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner at the homeless shelter.
Milagros Oliveras, a St. Francis client service staff member, said 50 dozen doughnuts were donated.
“That’s a blessing,” Oliveras said.
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 3/16/2015 under the headline “1,404 abandoned donuts find home”]
1,404 amount of abandoned doughnuts
117 amount of boxes needed to hold all the doughnuts
2 x 5 the dimensions of a doughnut in inches
234 feet The height of this stack of doughnuts, if estimated at 2 inches high
77 feet How much taller the doughnuts are than Century Tower
51 feet How much taller the doughnuts are than the Leaning Tower of Pisa
435, 240 The number of calories in 1,404 Boston Kreme donuts
217 The amount of days a person consuming 2,000 calories/day could survive on Boston Kreme doughnuts
