An article about the opening of Zombie written by the Red & Black: https://www.redandblack.com/athensnews/uga-student-opens-make-your-own-donut-shop-in-athens/article_8bc6c086-ce29-11e5-b012-1346f3424382.html
After opening a location in Washington, D.C., last year, owner Tony Raffa is happy to be opening Zombie Coffee and Donuts in Athens.
Raffa, a 22-year-old business major at the University of Georgia, said the shop will have coffee and donuts made fresh-to-order but it will be set up more like a frozen yogurt shop than like a donut shop, with customers getting to choose their own toppings.
Raffa said he had the idea for the business while he was still running a software business with his friends as a college freshman. While working on an app for restaurants, he met Chuck Rendelman, the president of a yogurt franchise called FroZenYo.
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From talking to Rendelman about the frozen yogurt business, he came up with the idea of applying the same have-it-your-way setup to donuts. Raffa then teamed up with Rendelman to create Zombie Coffee and Donuts.
The logo is a red eye representing the zombie motif and the state of the customers before they drink coffee, according to Raffa.
“You’re a zombie before you have your coffee,” Raffa said.
Raffa described how the business works, saying donuts run on a conveyor belt all day, and when a worker takes a donut off the belt for a customer, the customer can then ask for toppings ranging from the usual glazes and powder to the unusual cookies and other foods, including the most popular, maple glaze with bacon.
Customers can ask for as many toppings at they want, the price per donut remains constant. Raffa said he does not want any customer to be discouraged from having it their way because of the price.
“I don’t like it when people don’t know what price they’re going into,” he said. “If you’re going to have it your way, I want you to know what price you’re looking at first.”
The same policy goes for the coffee. Raffa said customers will be able to top the coffee any way they want to with self-serve machines, or they can ask the barista to make them specialty drinks.
Raffa said he plans to keep the shop operating around the schedule of many college students, from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. The store will also deliver donuts around the Athens area, he said.
To show his appreciation, Raffa said he plans to give some of the shop’s proceeds to the city and school district, but is allowing his customers to vote to decide where else they want the donations to go.
“There’s really no place like Athens. It's pretty unique,” Raffa said. “It has that kind of feeling that everyone has got each other’s back. It’s honestly a community that I feel like has given me a lot.”
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