5:04 a.m.
It’s Sunday morning and Paul’s doughnut shop is a square beacon of light on a street shrouded in darkness.
Right now there’s no one in the usually overcrowded parking lot to smell the sweet smell of iced rings, cinnamon knots, and the all-time, best-selling chocolate long-johns permeating the crisp morning air. But that will all change within the next few hours.
Just within the glass doors to the immediate left sit the very things that Paul’s is known around the whole of
Far side of counter. 7:38 a.m.
By now, the first wave of “regulars,” as they’re called, have already come and gone from Paul’s “prime real-estate,” or as it may be more commonly known, the six bar stools at the far side of the counter. On days when the property is already occupied by six coffee-sipping regulars, a just arriving regular might stand behind a stool and kindly, yet firmly, wait for the current occupant to leave. However, on this brisk Sunday morning, there are only two tenants in the coveted spots when a tall and thin graying man approaches the counter.
“What’s up Mikey, have a seat,” says the man nearest to the new arrival, who just prior had been immersed in the Post Dispatch.
“Hey Dan, you just get here?” Mike replies.
“Nah, been here for a bit,” the man known as Dan says.
Not three minutes later, in comes another familiar face.
“Hey guys,” says an unusually slim woman, just beginning to show the weathering of time on her face.
Mike instinctively gets up and walks behind the counter. He methodically grabs a fresh mug from the cabinet below and reaches for the pot of coffee on the nearby burner. He fills the new mug and goes about re-filling the two emptying mugs of his friends there before him.
The four friends continue to chat about life, sports, and do what the regulars do best, “solve the world’s problems,” as current owner Bill Feld likes to call it. Mike Kerns, or Mikey as his friends at the counter like to call him, agrees. It’s the people and conversation that make Paul’s the Paul’s doughnuts they all know and love.
“These guys [keep me coming back],” Mike says. “It’s really a hangout for us guys and gals.”
It’s now half past eight, and that second wave of regulars has, like the ones before them, finished their cups of steaming coffee, said good-bye to friends, and made their way to the door and back to their lives.
However, tomorrow will be no different than today. Tomorrow, the coffee pot will once again take its place on the burner next to the counter. Tomorrow, the six stools will wait for their favorite guests to take their places. Tomorrow, the fresh mugs will sit underneath the counter waiting for one regular to come pour himself and his friends a cup of coffee so that they can solve one more of those “world problems” they love so much.