Photography by Kathy Tran
But the store still sells popcorn, packaged sweet rolls and Baby Cakes, their little packaged doughnuts, directly from the factory. Baby Cakes come in powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar or plain. When you buy a package of similar doughnuts in the grocery or convenience store, there’s no telling how stale they’ll be.
These guys straight from the source are always fresh and delicious. They make a perfect last-minute item to pickup for a Christmas or New Year’s gathering. Put a few each into paper cups and pass a tray of them for a no-touch party treat. Their big bags of popcorn also make it easy to package up COVID-safer snacks served in individual paper bags. Bring cash because everything is so inexpensive that you’ll feel silly paying with plastic.
Lone Star Donuts originally opened in what is now the Bishop Arts District in 1950. Two couples, the Burdines and the Wards, opened it with one employee who cut the dough, and they produced and sold 300 doughnuts a day. The husbands made deliveries, and the wives ran the shop.
Back then, when the old Dallas streetcar still stopped at Bishop and Davis, it cost 5 cents for two doughnuts and a cup of coffee. In 1957, the Burdines bought out their partners, and in 1963, they moved to their current location on Beckley Avenue. A second-generation owner, Gene Burdine, turned to expansion in the late 1960s, opening 32 retail stores throughout the Dallas area. But a decade later, the company decided to focus on its products for grocery and convenience retail, and it closed all of the Lone Star Donuts franchises.
The company got its sweet rolls and Baby Cakes into Sam’s Club in the 1990s, and production increased rapidly, with the storefront on Beckley as the only place that sold its fresh doughnuts. Kathy Burdine, the company’s third-generation owner, now runs the place. The company announced recently: “We hope to be back to our traditional line of products once the effects of the pandemic have passed.”
Lone Star Donuts, 1727 N. Beckley Ave., 214.946.2185 Hours: 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, closed Sunday and Monday
