The Art of Donut began as a sweet labor of love. The San Antonio–based donut shop originally started in 2016 as a donut truck founded by Andrea Aguirre and Miguel Aja, who grew their romantic partnership into a business one. Aja, a fourth generation baker, was well acquainted with the world of sweet treats, but for Aguirre, everything was new. “I was the one dreaming,” she explained.
In a quest to turn this dream into a reality, the couple traveled the United States for six months. They toured different donut and coffee shops, studied the ins and outs of what makes a donut shop work, and more importantly, learned how to make theirs stand out. Eventually, they came back and decided to open a food truck. It allowed them to learn how to operate a business firsthand with enough flexibility to move at their own pace, and according to Aguirre, things moved quickly.
“After six months of opening our food truck, we were super busy,” she said. As business continued to pick up, they quickly outgrew their food truck and settled on the next step in their business journey: a physical shop. “We ventured into a brick and mortar, and the fun part is that we started with [Square] from the very beginning.”
Maintaining the customer relationship during expansion
Expanding from Square Reader to Square Point of Sale was one thing, but expanding from a food truck to a physical shop was another thing entirely. In the excitement of taking on more business, Aguirre had concerns about how their food truck operations would translate into a physical shop and how they would maintain the relationship they’d built with customers over the initial six-month period. The latter concern became especially prominent when they realized their brick and mortar would be in a new area entirely. “The most challenging part was getting our name out in a new town,” she explained. But tapping into the array of Square products and services made reaching customers slightly less daunting.
“With all these features from [Square], it helped a lot, because we were able to reach a lot of people through the website, the orders, and [more],” Aguirre says. The Art of Donut utilizes Square Online, Square Loyalty, Square Marketing, and Square Appointments to help foster customer relationships in their physical shop. Currently, they leverage Square Online and Square Appointments to accept preorders and customer orders, respectively. “You can generate profit [beyond your store hours] when you have your online store, and that was super helpful,” she said.
The Art of Donut also sells merchandise, accepts catering inquiries, sells gift cards, and offers in-store and curbside pickup options through their online shop, making it the perfect digital storefront.
In fact, their Square Online shop has been so impactful for the business that, today, Aguirre estimates 40% of their revenue comes from it. ”
Andrea Aguirre → owner and co-founder of The Art of Donut
Growing the customer relationship through loyalty
In addition to a successful online presence, The Art of Donut is also experiencing success in another area: customer loyalty. With over 40,000 customers currently enrolled in their Square Loyalty program, Aguirre says that encouraging customers to sign up inside and outside of the shop has made all the difference. “[At events] we always bring a big QR code with our logo and everything, so customers can just go and scan their code and register so they can [see] all the different [perks] available,” she said. The events they frequent include charity events, events at their local food bank, and those held directly at their shop.
Tapping into seasonal offerings for Halloween and graduation season, for instance, has also helped drive loyalty because the business offers different donuts throughout the year, encouraging customers to keep coming back to try new flavors and build on their reward points. “Customers really keep track of their stars and get excited whenever they’re going to get something like an extra donut or an extra coffee,” she said.
But loyal customers won’t always know what’s new without dedicated marketing. Leveraging tools like Square Marketing gives The Art of Donut insight into how customers are engaging with their marketing and helps them chart a path toward improvement. “We use [Square Marketing] data and combine it with our social media [data]. That way, we can get a sense of what is working, what is not, what we need to push more,” she explained. With more than 42,000 followers on Instagram to gather insights from, alongside the insights provided by both Square Loyalty and Square Marketing, The Art of Donut has a wealth of data at their disposal to better understand their customers and their needs, furthering its growth.
Building a delicious future
‘Growth’ is the word for the future for The Art of Donut. The donut shop has recently opened up applications for franchising opportunities and is also working toward more catering opportunities for large corporations. But for this business, growth still means enjoying the process. “We really love what we are doing, and that people are still coming back to our shops and enjoying their coffee, their donut,” Aguirre shared.
With personal and professional fulfillment already at the foundation, the execution of what’s to come feels energizing, and Aguirre boiled it down to one simple sentence: “Opening our first franchise shop, and doing more catering, and making people happy.”
