This Delaware doughnut shop inspires lines at the door and sells out within 2 hours

The first customer arrived before 7 a.m.

Bleary eyed, nearly sleepwalking, she pushed at the door. No dice. Sleeping Bird Doughnuts wouldn't be open for another hour.

But customers kept coming nonetheless. The true pros stayed in the comfort of their cars until the last possible moment. But by 10 minutes before 8 a.m. opening time on Thursday, Aug. 29, a long line of customers already extended down the side of Sleeping Bird's building at 4001 Concord Pike in Talleyville, behind Lucky's Coffee Shop.

There was Krisinda Alberto near the front of the line, a teacher buying a treat for the other teachers at her school. When asked what she taught, she laughed and said "phys-ed." But tradition is tradition, and teachers get doughnuts the first week of school. At the head of the line there was Mik Patel, buying treats for his wife at home. He'd tried the brioche rings when the shop opened the week before, and was already back for more.

They were probably right to line up.

Two hours later, every single one of the 739 doughnuts made for the day at Sleeping Bird would be sold out. The same thing happened every day since they'd opened – a level of excitement rare for a tiny bakery just five days into its existence.

Sleeping Bird Doughnuts began as a side business, then became a phenomenon

Those early crowds were all there to secure scratch-made doughnuts that some called the best in Delaware even before Sleeping Bird had a dedicated doughnut shop.

For years, husband-and-wife owners Zach DeLong and Leigh Ann Tona had served a limited number of doughnuts at their coffee shop, Sleeping Bird Coffee, during weekdays – doughnuts that quickly grew a cult following. If you knew, you knew.

DeLong and Tona had met, years ago, when both were running food trucks: She sold sandwiches, he sold coffee. Eventually they joined forces, in both business and life, and opened Sleeping Bird Coffee in Wilmington, next door to Pizzeria Metro and Wilmington Brew Works.

After their regular pastry provider closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, they began baking their own treats to sell at the shop. First scones and biscuits, then cinnamon rolls. Finally, perhaps fatefully, DeLong figured he'd try his hand at doughnuts. He made 10 a day on slow weekdays at the cafe, then 30, then 100.

No amount was enough: the doughnuts kept disappearing.

Fans bought T-shirts proclaiming themselves part of the "secret doughnut club." A national website declared them the best doughnuts in Delaware. Finally, when the couple found a small space tucked away in a back parking lot behind Lucky's Coffee Shop, they took a chance. They'd open a dedicated doughnut shop. At the very least, they figured, they could use the bakery space to supply more doughnuts to their coffeehouse.

Sleeping Bird Doughnuts opened in Talleyville on Aug. 22. It's been cheerful pandemonium ever since.

Sleeping Bird's rich, buttery brioche doughnuts are a rarity in Delaware

Sleeping Bird's doughnuts, $3 to $4 apiece, are made with sweet and buttery brioche dough – a Rhode Island specialty but a unicorn-caliber rarity in these parts.

The doughnuts are painstakingly scratch-made, rested and proofed for hours until the dough is just right, kneaded and rolled out into sheets and then stamped into doughnut shapes. The remaining dough, the holes and scraps, are then worked and rolled out yet again.

Flavors rotate rapidly. Thursday's batch of eight flavors included rings frosted with gently caramelized brown butter and honey – honey that's apparently stubborn and difficult to set, making this a popular but potentially rare flavor. The South of Boston Creams arrive covered in chocolate and piped with vanilla cream filling mixed from scratch and cooked the previous night, before being cooled and piped into an orb of buttery fried brioche.

One brown-butter doughnut arrived filled with the same frosting you'd use in cinnamon rolls, a rich flavor that inspires fits of nostalgic ecstasy in customers who spent their childhood licking sugar off their fingers.

Or if you like it simple, you can maybe just get chocolate and sprinkles. Or a maple old-fashioned.

Even those old standbys are an indulgence: Sleeping Bird Doughnuts' brioche is buttery and rich. But the hours of resting and proofing mean the yeasted doughnuts are airy as a cloud, as if bread could be spun like cotton candy and trussed into architecture. The frosting is often more subtle than overwhelming or oversweet, an accent to the delicacy of the doughnuts themselves.

The demand has been seemingly insatiable.

Soon, Sleeping Bird Doughnuts hopes to ramp up production to meet demand

The hype isn't intentional, Tona said, and neither is the scarcity. They're trying, they swear: They don't actually want to sell out in two hours, or disappoint anyone who took the time to drive to their shop.

She and her husband and their small crew are working as hard as they can, they say. The demand has been gratifying, but overwhelming.

Tona and DeLong have been working 13-hour days to proof and bake and fry and fill and decorate as many doughnuts as they can for the hungry crowds that have greeted the opening of their shop. They show up each day at 4 a.m. to begin the process.

When you do it right and take no shortcuts, the doughnut-making process can be long: almost 24 hours.

Every day since opening, Sleeping Bird sold out quickly. Their first five days open, they sold out within two hours of opening the store. But this doesn't mean they close the shop and go home.

By 9 a.m., Long and the bakery crew already are hard at work mixing and working the dough for the next batch of doughnuts: the one they'll sell tomorrow. They must still make all the glazes, all the fillings. Everything at their shop is made fresh for each batch, with ingredients whose names you know.

So far they've topped at around 700 a day of these laborious doughnuts.

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The pair already are hiring, hopefully enough people to add an extra dough-making shift. As new staff come aboard, and the current crew gets faster, they'll slowly ramp up production. A hundred more, then another hundred more doughnuts a day.

They don't want to have to turn people away. Maybe even someday, they'll start working 10-hour days instead of 13-hour days.

But so far, doughnut fans don't seem to mind posting up a little early to ensure a pink box of Sleeping Bird, making them a hero at the office. Those who aren't successful have also seemed forgiving, so far.

On Thursday at 10 a.m., a woman arrived just after Sleeping Bird had sold out – just in time to see the signboard outside flip to "SOLD OUT." She was amazed at such a sight.

"I've never seen a business like this, where the hours are 8 a.m to sold out," she said, marveling to passersby in the parking lot.

Was she upset to miss out? No, not really.

"It's nice to see a business be supported," she said.

Sleeping Bird Doughnuts is open Thursday to Sunday at 4001 Concord Pike in Talleyville, from 8 a.m. till doughnuts sell out. Doughnuts sell out quickly, so check their Instagram at instagram.com/sleepingbirddoughnuts before showing up. More information at sleepingbirddoughnuts.com.

Matthew Korfhage is business and development reporter in the Delaware region covering all things related to land and money: openings and closings, construction, and the many corporations that call the First State home. Send tips and insults to [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: What makes Delaware's Sleeping Bird Doughnuts so special?