Doughnut shop Fractured Prune opens near West Chester
"We started talking. We're like, 'Doughnuts are fun. It's family fun. Our kids are super excited about it,' and so …"
With a name like Fractured Prune…
The Ocean City, Md.-based made-to-order doughnut chain, now on a franchising roll, opens June 5 in Bradford Plaza outside West Chester, and the couple running it freely concede that they had no idea what they were getting into.
"We'd been kind of talking about doing something else, doing something different, something together, as a family," said Brandy Bell-Truskey, 43, a former TV news reporter for outlets such as CBS3 and Philly.com and currently in media relations for a large corporation. She and her husband, Tom Truskey, 53, who owns an HVAC company, have two young Colson, 7, and Dawson, 3.
"We had the doughnuts in Ocean City [N.J.] and we loved them," she said. "The day we went, there was a line. We were like, 'Wow. What is this?' We started talking. We're like, 'Doughnuts are fun. It's family fun. Our kids are super excited about it, and so …' That's the really boiled-down version, but here we are."
The couple live a few miles from the shop. Since they are keeping their day jobs, the boys' babysitter, Nichole King, will run the day-to-day operations at the shop. "If you trust someone with your children, then you can trust someone with your business," Bell-Truskey said.
Still, "if you went back 10 years ago and would've asked me if I would've ever ended up owning a doughnut shop and been doing what I'm doing now, I'd have said, 'No way,'" she said.
Fractured Prune — much like other custom doughnutteries out there such as Duck Donuts and The Dapper Doughnut — specializes in hot cake doughnuts made with choice of glazes and toppings. Coffee and drinks round out the menu. The doughnuts are sold two for $3.99, six for $8.99, and 12 for $14.99.
The name, according to company lore, was inspired by a 19th-century athlete, Prunella Shriek, who not only defeated men at various sports but had the broken bones to prove it. Hence, "Fractured Prunella."
They plan to open at 7 a.m. daily.
Another Fractured Prune, run by a different franchisee, is due to open soon in Audubon Square in Audubon, Montgomery County.