Since the Maple Bacon, the zeal of Voodoo Doughnut has drawn people from across the globe. “You go with what you know,” says Pogson, “And what we knew was cereal and powder.”īetween their initial ideas and input from the employees, they created classics like “Old Dirty Bastard,” a hefty Oreo and peanut butter laden ring “Miami Vice,” with blue and pink sprinkles and, of course, the “Maple Bacon Bar,” the one they say was their first “exotic” doughnut that took off. They attribute their success to their effortless creativity and, of course, the “smell that sells.” While it might be more cost effective to make their doughnuts at another location in bulk and ship them to the stores, Shannon and Pogson wanted to keep the doughnut shop authentic, making three to four batches of hand cut doughnuts throughout the day to keep their doughnut shop smelling like a doughnut shop.Īs for the ever present creativity behind doughnuts, Shannon and Pogson give credit to late night, lethargic trips wandering the aisles of the supermarket. They did, and it has been flourishing since. Shannon’s girlfriend at the time jotted a sign on a ripped piece of cardboard that read, “Yeah baby…We’ve got your doughnuts! Plenty o’ doughnuts” to encourage the crowd to return to the original 750 square foot downtown Portland store. “We don’t talk about money that much, but compared to business now…” says Pogson. On May 30, 2003, Tres Shannon and Kenneth Pogson opened their downtown Portland location.
Neither Shannon nor Pogson had ever attempted to bake a doughnut until this point.
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They put their plan into action and soon found themselves down in Los Angeles, learning how to make doughnuts.
While they spoke of different business ideas, bouncing between opening a bar to a restaurant to a tour company, when they landed on doughnuts, “It was more like ‘Why not doughnuts?’” says Pogson. When they shook hands in agreement to start a business together in February 2001, they never expected to wind up where they are today.įriends for years, they traveled in the same social circles and started including business ideas with their cocktail meet ups, “Which people are prone to do in their 20s and 30s, you know,” says Shannon. Looking at the two together, one could never imagine them working together, let alone starting and running one of Portland’s “exotic, not gourmet” staples. His and Kenneth “Cat Daddy” Pogson’s faces beam down at us from photos with the likes of Anthony Bourdain, Jay Leno, and a 666-pound box of doughnuts.Īround the corner sat Pogson, the opposite of Shannon’s doughnut printed belt, long hair, and yellow glasses with a pair of neat, grey slacks, sweater, and classic black dress shoes. We follow him past walls covered in photos, articles, and awards. “Come on in,” he says as he gestures us with his paisley-clad arm. Tres Shannon, co-owner of Voodoo Doughnut, swings open the door to the Voodoo Doughnut headquarters in an old building nearby downtown Portland. The Smell that Sells is an article I wrote for a group multimedia project over Voodoo Doughnut in January, 2014 to give readers a better sense of the business and its culture.
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