All I have to say is one word, and I’m going to stretch it out and make it count: Noooooooooooo!
One of my favorite places in Savannah, Georgia, is the old-school Krispy Kreme on Skidaway Road, which I usually hit whenever I’m in the area— after checking in on the last 1970s Taco Bell sign down the street, of course.
This evening, I was alerted to a post by Jesse Blanco of the food site Eat It & Like It reporting that the location had closed. Writes Blanco:
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, a staple on Skidaway Road in Savannah has closed its doors, yes, for good.
A sign on the door and drive through explains the ‘difficult decision’ for corporate in deciding to close this location. The store was iconic on the Savannah landscape for decades.
The sign on the door sends shoppers to the Abercorn Street location some nine miles away. And, in case you are wondering, it does not look like this.
Other local media, while confirming the news, could shed no additional light on the abrupt closure of this beloved location, which Roadarch.com reports dates to 1968.
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I’ll keep you updated on what I learn with future newsletters. Please sign up. Below is my essay on this location, written in 2019 after a lovely visit with my family, a memory I will always cherish.
Just down the road from the 1970s Taco Bell sign I shared with you a few days ago is another vintage roadside treat — this wonderfully preserved Krispy Kreme franchise in Savannah, Georgia.
This store has it all for the vintage retail enthusiast, beginning with the classic neon sign that lures you off busy Skidaway Road. Then there’s the iconic midcentury building with green tile roof, topped by that Krispy Kreme space-age crown. (You have to love the smiling Ks hoisting their donuts, original glazed, no doubt.)
Inside, you can help yourself to a white paper hat and enjoy your donut while watching the confections come to life in the bakery behind the window. The Savannah location hails from an era when Krispy Kreme, founded in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1937, was expanding throughout the Southeast, before it established itself as a nationally known object of culinary desire.
There are only a handful of Krispy Kremes of this 1960s design still in business, and this one right before you is one of the sweetest.
It was bittersweet to read that.
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