By Emma Driban, Editor, Jewish Living Delaware

If, like many Wilmingtonians, you’ve been a fan of Sleeping Bird Coffee since their opening in 2021, it should come as no surprise that Zach and Leigh Ann’s latest venture is equally as delicious.

As of August 2024, Sleeping Bird has a new home on 202 tucked behind Lucky’s Coffee Shop. While their original coffee shop is still bustling over on Miller Road, the new Sleeping Bird Doughnuts is a hive of foodie bliss.

Co-Owner Zach DeLong is the mastermind behind the highly sought-after doughnuts. While still operating his now-dissolved food truck—Scission—AND working in the coffee shop, Zach began experimenting with doughnut dough for fun and came to find that customers loved his confectionery creations. Unfortunately, due to the size of the space on Miller Road, he was maxed out at about 100 doughnuts per day—which sold out almost every time the duo had them for sale. Now, at around 1,000 doughnuts per day, Zach and Leigh Ann are still selling out, with customers coming in droves to try their unique flavors.

During a busy week in November, Co-Owner Leigh Ann kindly sat down and took the time to answer some questions. Read on for a full interview with Sleeping Bird Doughnut’s co-owner.

1. Can you share the story behind how you started your business? What has the evolution from food trucks to coffee shop to doughnut shop looked like?

Zach and I were both running our own food trucks when we met in 2018. Mine was a sandwich truck called I Don’t Give a Fork and his was a coffee truck called Scission. We talked casually about starting something together one day, but it wasn’t until we saw the space at Miller Road that we were serious about it. Once that was underway, I began the process of closing my business and selling my truck. Zach held onto his for a bit, still doing some events here and there.

The transition was interesting! We had worked together on each other’s trucks a lot, but never in a partnership where we were both 50/50 owners, so we had to navigate how to solve conflicts since it was truly an equal partnership. I think we both prefer the brick-and-mortar over food trucks since there is no travel or being out in the elements or finding events to go to.

2. How did the whole doughnut venture get started? What drew you to expand?

When Zach still had his food truck, there were days when he didn’t have events and would have little to do at the coffee shop. He began experimenting with doughnut dough for fun and—when we noticed the customers loved it—he made more and more doughnuts. Unfortunately, due to the size of the space on Miller Road, we maxed out at about 100 doughnuts per day. We sold out almost every time we made them and, while we had no set plans to open a doughnut shop, it was always a consideration. It wasn’t until our landlord showed us a small space on 202 that we crunched some numbers and realized that it would work as its own separate business.

3. What are some of the challenges you had to overcome to get Sleeping Bird Doughnuts up and running?

The challenges with building out a space are always going to be time and money. We thought we would be open by April 2024 and ended up not opening until August 2024. We, luckily, did not spend THAT much more than anticipated, however the lengthy delay cost us some money in terms of lost revenue. The biggest challenge that we did not anticipate (and maybe we should have!) was the insane amount of doughnuts we needed to make to sell to everyone who wanted one in the first few weeks of opening. We sold out within an hour almost every day and scaling from 100 doughnuts to 1,200 doughnuts was definitely a challenge. We had never used some of the equipment in the doughnut shop before—such as the proofer—and learning those new items was definitely difficult. Pair that with training a brand new staff and of course you’ll find challenges.

The challenges with building out a space are always going to be time and money. We thought we would be open by April 2024 and ended up not opening until August 2024. We, luckily, did not spend THAT much more than anticipated, however the lengthy delay cost us some money in terms of lost revenue. The biggest challenge that we did not anticipate (and maybe we should have!) was the insane amount of doughnuts we needed to make to sell to everyone who wanted one in the first few weeks of opening. We sold out within an hour almost every day and scaling from 100 doughnuts to 1,200 doughnuts was definitely a challenge. We had never used some of the equipment in the doughnut shop before—such as the proofer—and learning those new items was definitely difficult. Pair that with training a brand new staff and of course you’ll find challenges.

4. How do you come up with your flavors? What are some of your favorites?

We try to do about 50/50 seasonal and not seasonal on the menu, which changes every two weeks. For example, we’ve been doing pumpkin/gingerbread/etc., but then also are currently featuring a passionfruit glazed doughnut just because I thought it would be a fun break from all of the heavy fall and winter flavors. My favorite are the glazed brioche rings, especially with our brown butter honey glaze.