HOUSTON — Shipley Do-Nuts, a donut restaurant franchisor and manufacturer of specialty food products, broke ground on a new 60,000-square-foot corporate headquarters at Cullen and Gulf Freeway in Houston. It will replace the company’s longtime headquarters on North Main Street in Houston.
The new headquarters will feature a full working flagship Shipley Do-Nuts shop with an interior drive-thru going right through the building that will provide a look behind the scenes into the making of the company’s donuts. The building also will house the company’s new yeast donut mix manufacturing facility and a donut innovation center, plus office space for about 130 people.
The headquarters will be renamed the L.W. “Bud” Shipley Jr. Support Center in honor of founder Lawrence Shipley’s son, who grew the brand from a local family business to a chain of nearly 200 locations.
“Bud Shipley was the visionary behind the company’s initial growth, and it’s only fitting that our new support center, which we’re building to accommodate our growing company, be named after him,” said Clifton Rutledge, chief executive officer of Shipley Do-Nuts. “I can think of no better way to celebrate our birthday than by breaking ground on our headquarters for our next 85 years.”
Shipley Do-Nuts has more than 330 locations across nine states and plans to open an additional 300 over the next five years in Texas and across the Southeast.