James of Pandamonium Doughnuts. Urbana, IL. Photo by Teresa Anderson
James Kyung had always been interested in creativity and doughnuts; when he put them together, he created Pandamonium Doughnuts. His idea was to bring gourmet doughnuts to the Champaign-Urbana area. The doughnut shop debuted at the Urbana Farmer’s Market last year, and it was welcomed by the CU community. Buzz sits down with Kyung to talk about the upcoming pop-up event and his future food truck aspirations.
»buzz: How did Pandamonium Doughnuts start out?
»James Kyung: It pretty much started out really just a hobby. I never intended on this being as big as it is right now. I started making doughnuts as a hobby in Fall 2012 … after a few doughnut trips up to Chicago. Since Chicago has a great doughnut culture and gourmet doughnuts, I got to experience that and thought ‘this is amazing.’
So I went home and started making doughnuts for fun and a lot of my friends were like ‘you should sell them at the Farmer’s Market.’ I signed up for the Market last year around May, but I didn’t start until June. It picked up and people got interested, and I started doing my own little twist with the doughnuts to become a part of this gourmet doughnut movement that the bigger cities are trying to do. I just thought I should do it here. I feel like this would be a really good fit for Champaign-Urbana.
Blueberry-lemon doughnuts from Pandamonium Doughnuts. Used with permission from James Kyung.
This new style of food is something a little different. Even since the Farmer’s Market ended in November, I did the Holiday Market for a little bit and then I played around with the idea of starting the food truck as a means of bringing the doughnuts to the next level and outside of the farmer’s market. I feel like the food truck would be the way to do it. In a way, it’s like an ice cream truck for doughnuts. It’s just quick and fun. Right now, I’m in the process of getting the food truck together. Ideally, I would want the truck up for spring, but it’s looking more towards spring or summer now. We’ll see how everything falls into place, but in the meantime, I have the pop-up coming up in a few weeks.
»buzz: Where did the name come from? I think it’s clever.
»JK: The name stems from an inside joke with friends. I would always joke with my friend that if I ever started a bar on campus, (this is back in my Undergrad because I used to go to school here) I would call it ‘Pandamonium.’ I used to be a lot bigger back in the day. I kind of resembled a panda more. I was just a very round circular person so everyone called me ‘Panda’ and the name just stuck. I thought I should just name my doughnuts ‘Pandamonium Doughnuts.’ So it pretty much just started from a nickname. I still go by Panda.
»buzz: How did you decide to start out with the Urbana Farmer’s Market?
»JK: I had no idea how I was even going to do that. My friend suggested it and I looked into it. I contacted the city of Urbana. They were really easy to work with and really helpful. I did the first weekend of June last year. So that’s kind of how it started. It was pretty small. I had no idea what would happen. I think I made 40 doughnuts that day, and I was really nervous thinking no one would buy them, but people responded and I thought ‘awesome.’ So I’ve just been slowly growing every step of the way, nothing too drastic. It’s been a really good progression.
Cereal Killer at Pandamonium Doughnuts. Used with permission from James Kyung.
»buzz: Will there be an established shop in the near future?
»JK: I hope so. That’s the ideal goal: getting a brick and mortar doughnut shop, a doughnut and coffee hybrid. The doughnut truck is a stepping stone, an in between phase [in] this whole doughnut plan I have. Ideally, the end goal is having a doughnut and coffee shop.
»buzz: You guys have a food truck coming, can you tell me about it?
»JK: I’ve always been interested in the mobile food vendor. In the last three years, the food trucks have hit this new life. It went from really dirty and quick — no one cared about the food — to now there’s gourmet food trucks everywhere. I’ve always been fascinated by this and I thought ‘why not have a doughnut food truck?’
»buzz: Can you tell me more about the Pop-up?
»JK: The Pop-up event is separate from the food truck; it’s in downtown Urbana. I’m teaming up with Colab. Matthew Cho is behind the movement of revitalizing downtown Urbana. He’s really involved in Urbana and we teamed up in Colab, this shared collaboration space he owns. So we decided to do this little doughnut shop like a Pop-up event. It’s a way to introduce people to my doughnuts who haven’t had it because the only people who are familiar with it are farmer’s market people. It’s a way to get my doughnuts out there in between now and the food truck. It’s going to be March 21 and goes until April 4 for three consecutive weekends. The idea is that it’s going to be limited amounts Friday to Sunday and we go until they sell out.
»buzz: Can you tell me more about the Indiegogo campaign?
»JK: I know a lot of people who use it. I’ve always been fascinated by how random members of the community step forward and help dreams come true or bring their dreams to life. I thought it would be a strong project to dabble in. I didn’t realize the response because it’s always this random thing and you have no idea who is going to donate. It turned out to be a good thing, I raised $3,000. I have a lot of cool perks: there’s free doughnuts, free dozen doughnuts, doughnut parties. There’s another one about create your own doughnut. The idea behind that was I create a lot of the doughnuts so one of the perks was to create your own. A few people got those perks and those are coming soon. I’ve been working on the perks because it ended in December. I’ve been trying to time it right and mail out the perks to people when the food truck debuts. It was a lot of fun and we got people interested. I thought that the Farmer’s Market was a good place to get influence. I’m so very grateful for this help.
Double Coconut at Pandamonium Doughnuts. Used with permission from James Kyung.
»buzz: Do you plan on selling the doughnuts through other vendors so people can buy them on days other than Saturdays?
»JK: Right now, I do doughnuts by special orders. People can contact me to make special requests. I pretty much do them by order to order basis. People can email me and I can send a flavor list of the doughnuts I have, and I usually request a 1-2 notice to get everything ready. The time I sell doughnuts other than the Farmer’s Market is the Pop-up coming up. Then after that it would be the food truck or the market, whichever one starts again first.
»buzz: What are your most popular flavors?
»JK: I guess the most popular is probably the maple glazed bacon apple fritter. The salted caramel. My newest one is the blueberry lemon — that’s been pretty popular now. I have a s’mores doughnut. Chocolate O.D. which is a chocolate base and a dark chocolate ganache and a chocolate buttercream and sprinkled chocolate chips. Chocolate quadrupled. All those are yeast styled. I’m going to debut cake style doughnuts at the Pop-up. I just got the equipment to do the cake style doughnuts, it’s a fun new toy. The yeast style are fun to do, but the cake style should be fun, too. I’m going to be debuting a birthday cake doughnut and a cake style version of the Chocolate O.D. and a vegan doughnut. I’ve been working on a vegan flavor that’s fun and creative. I have a lot of people coming up to me asking me about vegan doughnuts because at the Market, we do gluten-free doughnuts during the summer. We also had a few vegan doughnuts like a vegan pumpkin-spice — that was really popular. If you think about it, there’s not many vegan doughnuts in town.
»buzz: Who comes up with the types of doughnuts you can have?
»JK: Right now, it’s just me. I have a lot of friends who give input, but I like to play around with them. I think my inspiration when it comes to doughnut flavors is working with popular desserts that a lot of people are familiar with. S’mores is a popular one that I turned into a doughnut and the Cereal Killer — but that one has been done a lot because lots of doughnut shops have put Fruity Pebbles or Lucky Charms on a doughnut. I just like to play around with sweets and put it on a doughnut. I got the blueberry lemon inspiration from a blueberry lemon muffin. I basically just think ‘how can I turn this into a doughnut?’
»buzz: Are there seasonal doughnuts too?
»JK: Yes, I have a few seasonal fruit flavored doughnuts, like over the summer I have a raspberry glaze doughnut that I only do during the summer. In the fall, I have a pumpkin and apple-cider doughnut. During the winter, I have an eggnog flavored and gingerbread flavor. During the summer, I’m going to be working more with seasonal fruits definitely the raspberry. I have strawberry basil because you never think that those flavors would work together, but that’s one of the cool things about basil because you can put it with anything. Summer is more focused fruit and fall and winter are focused on more common things that people associate with them. I’m always trying to come up with more flavors. Another popular flavor is the PB & J. The inspiration for it is that it’s my favorite food ever. I could have that every day.
»buzz: Any final thoughts?
»JK: Definitely come try the Pop-up. Just spend your weekend with doughnuts. I don’t know how you could go wrong. My doughnuts are meant to be enjoyed. I’m going to debut a few new flavors like a chocolate covered strawberry one, a Valentine’s Day themed one. The price range is usually a $2.00 average. These are gourmet doughnuts. Everything is made from scratch, no preservatives, no trans-fat, high quality ingredients. I like to concentrate on the cooking experience of food so I try to bring that with my doughnuts.
Check out their new Pop-up event at the [co][lab], 206 W Main St., Downtown Urbana.
Weekends Pop-up Hours starting at:
March 21-23 Fridays 5 P.M.
March 28-30 Saturdays 8 A.M.
April 4-6 Sundays 10 A.M.
- Until Sold Out!