Donut Dreams: From College to Sweet Success with Renee Bexiga

Carlsbad, people, purpose, and impact, an essential podcast for those who live, work, visit, and play in Carlsbad.

Good morning, and welcome, everyone. My name is Brett Schonzenbach. I am the president and CEO of the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce, and I'm your host today. And I'm pleased to have with me Renee Bexiga. Did I say it right?

You did.

Bexiga Renee is the owner of Get and Go Donuts and a friend of the chambers. Good morning, Renee.

Good morning. How are you?

I'm very well. Thanks for joining me this morning.

Absolutely.

I had to practice your last name because it's got a fun spelling and

Everybody does. Yeah.

Although, you know, when you say it, it's fine. It's like if I didn't look and I just listened, I'd do better. But if I looked and tried to connect it, I'm, like, struggling. But, you

know It's the the American x. Everybody says x no matter what. So Bexiga, all through school, my husband had that. They called him that. But I always my name is Renee, which is I've I've always had a weird time with people saying that as well.

Oh, wow.

So I've always corrected people my entire life. So now, Bashiga, it just comes naturally. Yeah. Like, no. It's Bashiga.

Say Bashiga, please.

Yeah. Absolutely. It's a beautiful name. So I was, you know, doing some background digging to get to know you a little better before we had our time to talk today. And I saw that you're, you're a NASDAQ.

You're a San Diego State grad.

Yes. Are you Yes. Very much so.

Born and raised here

in San Diego? I was pretty much raised here. I was born in Jersey. Okay. I grew up in San Diego in Claremont.

So I've lived there my entire life. I went to Mesa College first. Yep. And then I went to San Diego State. Did a little bit of the kinda well, at state, it was a 4 year program, but the total, it was like a 10 year program.

Took me a little while to get through. But, yeah, and my husband is as well. So we're both kind of alumni as we represent. We actually go to Snapdragon now, which is amazing. I don't know if anybody's been there.

I have not had a chance to go to Snapdragon yet. It looks like a really cool venue, though.

It is a very nice stadium. It's very open, and it's beautiful.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It does look very cool. I I need to.

I need to get down there.

You should.

I now I have gone to not not this season yet, but, usually, we get to at least 1 or 2 of the Aztec basketball games. We're big Aztec basketball fans, and they've had

On campus. Right? Yes. Yeah. I haven't been there yet.

Yeah. Yeah. And they've, you know, of course, a couple years ago, made it all the way to the national championship game, you know, which was super fun. We we did hit one of the games that season, which was fun because as they were progressing through the tournament, you know, we kinda knew the players a little better because we had gone that year. So that was really fun.

But That's cool. They're a they're a great local team to have in our community.

Absolutely. I mean, the campus is amazing. When we went, it was a lot smaller. It's grown so much now. There's I mean, all the the not the fraternity houses, but all the housing is on campus.

Right.

Like, it wasn't there when I was there. Yeah. The big field they have a big soccer field, and they have a bunch of stuff going on over there. Stadiums. We we go to the concerts a lot.

Nice. Very nice. And and you, like, during college or right after college or maybe a mixture of the 2, got into food and beverage, like, right

away? Right. Well, it was during.

So

I I put myself through school doing that. Yeah. I probably, had 2 I had a morning waitress job and an afternoon waitress job at Outback Steakhouse.

Nice.

And then I went to school Tuesdays Thursdays all day. So I was Yep. Working and going. But, yeah, the food and beverage has been my life for a long time.

Yeah. And then I saw that you became, like, lead bartender at Rock Bottom

Yeah. For a while? So I went from Outback to Rock Bottom downtown. I was there for 8 or 10 years, and worked my way up there. So lead bartending.

It was fun. We had Yeah. Music in the front, and then we had a DJ in the back. We also had an upstairs with a little bar and pool tables. It was a really cool place.

Cool. It's restaurants are nice because you create family.

Yeah.

Family that you didn't know you had, and you spend most of your time there. So I still have girlfriends. Actually, one of my best girlfriends was a cocktail waitress there. Nice. So we've known each other for over 20 years, and our kids are 3 weeks apart.

Oh, wow. How fun. Yeah. That that whole, you know, bartending vibe. I was gonna ask, like, do you have a like, did you guys have regulars that came in that you knew?

Like, was did were you able to create that kinda cheers experience?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Having the the drink on the bar before they even got there Oh, wow. Or, there was a group of guys. They were lawyers that would come in after work, and they would always sit in the corner.

And you knew they all had the same beer or what they were drinking. And you you just start to create that because that's how you make your money. Yeah. You you create relationships. You create friendships.

I had one old regular, Jimbo, I used to call him. He was an old vet, and he would come in, and that was his afternoon. And he would come out and hang out, and we would actually because on Tuesday afternoons, I did the lunch shift, and it was slower. So I would do the crosswords in the paper, and he would sit there and help me and Oh, okay. And, I met his daughter.

I met his family, so that was kinda neat. But he was my my Tuesday regular.

Oh, fun. Yeah.

It was cool.

That's very cool. And, like, to your point, like, you wanna create that atmosphere that they feel valued and seen and known because, obviously, they're gonna tip better, and Yeah. You're gonna pick

You hope for that. Yeah. And if not, like I said, some of the friendships are nice enough that, you know, they give you some, and you're like, no. No. No.

It's okay. I don't need that. But Yeah. It's always nice.

That's cool. And then, you and I met when you were at Ignite Bistro.

Yeah. Long time ago.

Yeah. And you were you were there for a while.

Yep. For the almost the duration. It opened in 2011. Yep. And then, obviously, COVID hit in 2019.

Right. And I think 8 months after that, they actually shut down.

Yeah. Yeah. And you you were a manager there?

Mhmm. Assistant manager. I left for a little bit, had my kid. Yeah. And then I came back as the assistant manager banquet coordinator.

So I did a lot of events there, which was cool. We had a great patio.

You did have a great patio. I remember doing a chamber happy hour there when you were there, and you had that man candy to die for.

Oh, yeah.

Oh my goodness. That's stuff.

Good stuff.

That was addicting. It was That

was our big seller.

That was so good. It was well, it was, I'm trying to remember. Bacon wrapped, dates. Right?

No. No. I don't know. What? It was just bacon.

So the appetizer was just strips of bacon, and we did brown sugar Brown

sugar.

Red pepper, and other things I can't talk about. You gotta keep it a little secret.

Yeah.

But we would serve it in strips. So we would cook it, and so it was more like a jerky. It would stand tall, and we'd put it in a little cup and serve it on the table. But that was the signature. And then for banquets, we actually did it covered, like, drizzled in chocolate.

Oh my goodness. Right.

Imagine that. Delectable.

Yeah. So Ignite, yeah, you were there for a while. And as you pointed out, they never really came back out of COVID there. Now if I remember correctly, the story goes that the ownership was more Colorado based or something. Yeah.

This was, like, their only California restaurant, and they kinda just said, I wanna deal with California's weirdness.

He's older. Frank Day was the owner, and he was the one who originated Rock Bottom Breweries Oh. Back in Colorado, and they went all over, like, the west. But he had so much hotels and restaurants in Colorado that he was dealing with, and he's a little up in age. He's probably, like now he's almost 90.

Okay. So

when that happened, he was 85. Yeah. He didn't wanna keep flying back and forth. Yeah. And Seth, my business partner, tried really hard to keep it going.

Yep. With

the to go program, because everything at that point was to go Yeah. And take out. And Yeah. We had 2 different kitchens. We had the main kitchen and then the pizza kitchen.

So just to hire people to get all that going and doing everything and

It was a lot.

It just yeah. It it wasn't on the best side. He probably would've had to put in a lot of money just to try and start something, and then who knows if it would've worked. Yeah. It was sad.

Yeah. Yeah. That was that was a bummer. It was a great restaurant even beyond just the man man can it was good. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But before before COVID, you actually then launched into Get and Go. So which is, we're gonna obviously get into the details more of Get and Go. But I really before we get into that, I wanna know why.

Why? What what motivated you? What was that thing that just said, I'm ready to start something different, and and why a donut shop?

So it was actually more spur of the moment than, hey, I wanna start a business now. Interesting. So it is in the same strip mall as Ignite.

Yep.

It was down the way. And in restaurants, a lot of times, you have your weekly meetings or your monthly meetings. You get everybody together, and Seth would go get donuts from the shop because it was super close. We could go 5 minutes before the meeting, go get them and come back. And they were selling.

So one day, he saw a for sale sign, and I guess he was, like, mulling it over. And I had tried to do a cupcake business

Okay.

On the side, called the Cupcake Chick, like Chic, c h I c Yeah. Instead of chick. But I was doing it with friends, and so it was like, yeah, just buy me the stuff, and I'll make you great donuts. And they were beautiful. I loved working with fondant fondant and, like, creating and making them like PAW Patrol, you know, making it really look like that.

But it didn't take off because it wasn't making money because I was like, just give me a little bit, and I'll do it for free. And so, when he came with me to me with that, I was like, it almost makes sense. But it was still scary. It's like Yeah. A new business, and you have to put money in, and you have to do this, and you have to invest time.

But from the beginning, my my husband and, and you know Eddie.

Yes.

And then his brother his brother kept saying, jump on it. Jump on it. You gotta do it. You gotta move now. So that was kind of it.

And I was, like, alright. Let's do it. And I knew nothing about donuts. I mean, restaurant industry, but I had never worked with donuts. I baked at home for the cupcakes.

So

Sure.

Big quantity or fryers and all that and making the dough. I had no clue. And, we just said, you know what? Let's try it. If you don't try it, you're never gonna know.

And even if it doesn't work, then you keep going and do something else. But

Yeah. It was it

was it was a fun time. It was stressful, but it was a fun time.

Yeah. Alright. We're gonna take a brief pause. We're talking to Renee Bashega.

Mhmm. Oh, I'm

getting Bashega? Renee Bashega, the owner of Get and Go Donuts. And when we come back, we're gonna dive in to Get and Go in more detail, so stick with us. We'll be right back. So, Renee, before we took a break, we were just talking about your personal journey to getting into the doughnut business.

But, you know, I've had the privilege of knowing a couple people, through my years in chamber work that had doughnut businesses. It's not the easiest, business out there. When you were first dove in, like and I don't hopefully not today, but, what time in the morning did you start? Oh, goodness.

It was normally 2 when we first started. So the owners actually decided to train us for a month because they were Cambodian. They didn't have any recipes written down.

Oh, goodness.

All in his head. So we had to really work with him. And the language barriers were a little tough, learning and writing stuff down and trying to create our recipes from their versions, but we still stick to everything that they have done. All the recipes are the same. The donuts are the same.

And that's one thing that most people say when they come in is, wow, it's so great that you're they're still the same donuts that we had back in the day. But yeah. So 2 in the morning Oh. And then go till whenever we would we were open till 2. We've kinda changed that now till 12.

Mhmm.

Because after after 12, there's really nobody looking for donuts.

Right.

But then it changed, and it got earlier. The busier we got, I was coming in at 12 AM

Oh my goodness.

Or 11 PM.

Oh my goodness.

So, it was tough because the 1st year, I was still working at Ignite

Yeah.

And doing the donut shop. So I was managing from 5:30 to, like, 12:30, 1:30. I would go to the donut shop and kick my feet up and take a nap on, like, the little rolly chair. And at 2, we would start. And so then I'd work from 2 to 9 AM, and then drive home, go take my kid to school, or go sleep, either one.

There was a couple times the the Carlsbad beach, what is it, the sea, whatever Carlsbad's wind and sea Yeah. Area, I would go park over there and sleep for 45 minutes knowing that I wouldn't be able to make it home. So I'm like, well, it's a good place to sleep by the beach.

Oh my gosh.

I got the sun rising up or whatever. It was fun. It was fun, but like I said, very tiring, overwhelming. It's it's, you know, that Wow. Gotta make the donuts, that 4 AM, that commercial from Dunkin' Donuts

on

the East Coast, but it's not. It they were in there at 2 AM every morning.

That's I had heard such things. Now you you you mentioned that, you kept the recipes, and so they're the same donuts, but but they're not the same donuts. You have turned it into an art form.

Yeah.

Your donuts are so amazing Thank

you.

Artistically. Talk about that side of it.

Well, that was the cupcake girl

coming in.

So we created the basic doughnuts. We still wanted to keep it a doughnut shop, but we were trying to add flair and do something different. And I follow a bunch of people. And so working with fondant, creating characters, or like, we have a Cookie Monster donut. It was super cute.

It was a Oreo not an Oreo. Chips Ahoy cookie, big marshmallow eyeballs, you know, and then I just go out in on, Instagram and everything. You see everybody doing stuff. So I would just gather ideas and go, okay, this is what I wanna do. Same as with the cupcakes.

Somebody comes to me with an idea. I want Marvel or I want, I don't know, Paw Patrol or Hello Kitty, you know. And I go, okay. What can I do? And I just start brainstorming and coming up with ideas.

And I think a lot of kids, I've learned, don't really like cake anymore. They really like the donuts, and they're individual pieces that you can hand out instead of cakes where they gotta cut them and Yeah. Divvy them up. But, yeah, it was just creating just that monster in my head. And it's usually very spur of the moment.

If I think about it way too far in advance, I kinda postpone it because I'm like, well, I don't know. I don't know. And then, like, 2 days before, like, just this monster takes over, and I just, like, I have ideas. And they usually turn out good. Sometimes they don't.

But most of the time, they turn out okay.

Come on. What's one that didn't turn out good? I'm dying to know because the your artistic stuff is so high.

Well, and that's it. It's probably that it didn't turn out good. It wasn't good enough for me. Yeah. You know?

So everybody, the normal eye would go, oh my gosh. It's amazing. And I'm like, well, the color's off, or the sprinkle doesn't look great.

Or Look how you saw it in your head. Exactly. And so then you're like, it's not good enough.

Yeah. There's not much. I mean, it's a doughnut. It's sweet. It can't really go that bad.

Right. Right. Right. And, I need to share with the world, that you also make donut cakes

Yes.

Like birthday cakes. So you made me one last month. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a donut birthday cake until you brought me one last month for my birthday. And that is super cool. Tell people about that.

That's just a big doughnut cake style. It's literally a doughnut. So we roll out a big thing of dough and cut a hole in it, and you fry it. And obviously, it cooks a little bit longer, but it comes out and we just you know, we've actually piled them up too where it's actually a big doughnut on the bottom, a middle doughnut, a little doughnut. So it does look like a cake.

Yeah. But, yeah, that's that's a big seller as well. So you can get that anytime. 24 hours notice, come to us and say you need a donut cake, and there it is.

There you go. The only 24 hours notice. That's great because it was a very, unique and fun, dessert. And and you and I have, you know, talked offline about this a little bit. But it's, it's different than a regular cake.

It doesn't dry out, like, you know, because if you don't get it all eaten in one sitting. Like, most desserts don't get eaten all in one sitting. But it doesn't dry out the same way as other cakes do.

I don't think so. Yeah. I always tell people, I'm like, I well, I've experienced a lot bringing them home for my son. And 2, 3, 4 days in, we're still especially, you know, when you cut that little outside edge might dry out, but you cut off that, and you're good with the It's just as fresh. Think it's because we glaze it, so the icing is kinda keeping the moisture in.

It's soft and gooey on the inside.

Yeah. I would have never thought of such a thing. Now, you guys are open 7 days a week?

7 days a week. We do close on holidays every once a month. Sure. But 6 to 12. So we've got our bakers, and then we've got our front of the house staff.

So it's different. So, usually, the people running the front aren't as tired as the bakers are.

Good. That's good. Your website says 6 AM till sold out. So if you sell out at 10 AM, you're just done.

Yes. Unfortunately, because we bake them fresh and because they are a spontaneous thing, we can't we try to give you a guideline. Yeah. But, you know, sometimes, if someone comes in and says they want 20 dozen, I'm gonna give them 20 dozen because there's no guarantee that I'm gonna sell all my donuts that day. Yeah.

So first come, first serve Yep. If you didn't get there. And it kinda keeps the the idea of, oh, I wanted a donut today, but they didn't, so I have to go tomorrow.

Yeah. That's scarcity. Now but with that in mind, if somebody really wanted 20 dozen, they'd be wise to call ahead and order, wouldn't they? I mean and then they can do that.

Yeah. Most of the time. Yeah. You can call ahead. We do do a lot of big orders.

So we do, Sundays for churches. Yeah. We do if it's a crazy order, we try to get you to call a couple days in advance, not just 24 hours, just to make sure we're staffed.

Yeah. But, Wait. Wait. Wait. To find a crazy order, what's the biggest order you've ever processed?

We did for FedEx, one one it was I think it was the holiday season. So they're trying to hook up all their drivers and, you know, give them give them stuff to keep them going.

Give them some love.

We did I think it was 40 dozen donuts, but we also did 250 ham and cheese croissants. Oh, wow. So we were all so we have this order. It's like the basic tie we do we do the basic, the tiger, and the stinger. It's our homemade croissants.

We slice them open. We put ham and cheese in there, and we toast them up, and they're amazing sandwiches. But we also put our bacon from our bacon bar on there, and then jalapenos. So we did 250 of those. And to get them out and warm and delivered at at crazy I think they wanted them at 6 30 or 7 in the morning.

Wow.

So we all got there, I think, at 2 in the morning just to make sure just to pack it up, just to make sure everything was ready to go.

That's wild. But that shows the scale you could handle. That's a big order. So you guys can you can handle a big volume. That's really great.

And now, you know, these podcasts, they take a little while before our audience gets to hear this. But as you and I are sitting here today, it's about what is it? The 20 something of January? 24th? 24th, I think.

My phone's not cooperating. What does it say? The 24th, there we go, of January. So my question is, have have we gotten past everybody's New Year's resolution yet? Or or are they back to

I don't know. Yesterday was a slow day. Slow I was actually there in the shop yesterday, and we had a lot of dozens left over.

Okay.

But what I try to do is when that happens, because I don't they're so beautiful and there's so so much effort goes into them. So So I try to give them out to the community or their neighbors. I have a friend who works at La Costa Glen.

Nice. Awesome. Is that

their home? Yes. Thank you. Sorry. And I was like, hey, can you come by and get some donuts?

I gave him 4 dozen to take back to the staff. I gave some to my son's school.

Sure.

We do a lot with Javier Oaks too, elementary and Yeah. And middle. So I try to do stuff with them. And Domino's will trade. Yeah.

Hey. Give me a pizza. I'll give you a dozen donuts for now. So Love it.

Love it.

It works out. There's there's definitely and then the vet next to us, they actually when the dogs are ready to be passed away

Oh, yeah.

They'll give them donuts. It's like their their last meal, which is so cute and so sad. But, we'll give them donuts. They put them in the freezer so they have extras to give them a little treat while they're yeah.

How interesting. Well, hopefully, the the, you know, New Year's resolution buzz will, you know Yeah.

I think it's coming back.

It's dying down.

They say by 12th, everybody gives up anyway, but I haven't seen it because we've had a lot of dozens left over. But February is good. Yeah. Valentine's Day. Yeah.

March is actually our biggest month. So that must be when everybody rolls back into it. And they're in their groove. They're ready to go. Schools, neighborhoods, stuff like that.

Is there a bunch of green donuts for Saint Patrick's Day in March?

We do do that. Yeah. We do that. I mean, every every holiday, we try to do something. Like, right now, we have our Valentine's Day dozen, and it's hearts and roses and sprinkles and love and, like, the little the Valentine candies that you get.

Yeah. So Very fun. Yeah. And we should let everybody know where you are. We've been we mentioned you're in the same center as Ignite Bistro.

But just in case people don't know where that is, tell everybody where exactly you are.

So it's 6986 El Camino, Suite e. We're in the corner. So if you know where Vons is and the Dove Library

Yes.

That bigger area, we're across the street. Yeah. We're next to US Bank, and, there's like a cryo freeze over there. The yoga shop actually, a lot of people know the yoga shop. A lot of locals know that yoga shop.

So Okay. Yeah. Across from the Dove Library, I think that's a great marker for everybody. And, you have a beautiful website, which is get the numb not the number. The letter get the the letter n, the word go, get and go donuts.com.

Is that right? Yes. And that's a great place where if they did wanna make a bigger order, or they can reach you? Or

There is a little banquet thing that they can go on and and enter information. We'll get on email. Mhmm. We try to get back within 48 hours, but sometimes calling is easier. The only thing is our hours.

So Right. You have to call before 12:30

Right.

Or no one's gonna pick up

Right.

Or early in the morning. So Yeah. So email would be good because we definitely get that no matter what time it is.

Okay. Very good. And if they were gonna give you a call, the phone number is?

760-814-2882.

There we go, folks. If you need to press pause and rewind and listen to that again, you can grab that. And I I know that, in addition to being big Aztec fans, it looks like you guys are pretty big Padre fans in your family.

Padre fans. Absolutely. I am still, and nobody likes to hear it, a Charger fan.

Yeah. We are too.

You know,

I'm They're still Southern California even though they abandoned us here in San Diego. I

mean, I grew up going to Jack Murphy Stadium

Yep.

And running around the little tubes that they had and rolling balls down there. And my dad was a big a big fan. He came from the East Coast as well. Yeah.

And he

was a Steeler fan. But then when he came here, he became a Charger fan and a Padre fan.

Nice.

And, I grew up with all of that. Yeah. Big sports person.

Lots of fun. Lots of fun. Well, did we miss anything that we wanted to make sure and touch on?

Well, one of our big things is we do National Donut Day. It's the first Friday of June. So that's coming up. People can prepare and get ready for. So usually, it's, like, June 2nd to 5th or something, the 1st Friday of June.

Awesome. Yeah. Get get prepared, folks, because it's gonna be impacted day.

And it's busy, so come early.

Very cool. Thank you for coming down, Renee, and taking time to share with us. And and we love having you in our chamber, and we are the beneficiary of your dough donuts. Many times, you've brought them to events of ours, and and, we take them out sometimes when Kathleen and I go visit our members. That's good.

We take them and drop them off, and, we love it's the easiest thing to get in the door at a company when you say you're bringing donuts. They're just like, oh.

Yeah. And everybody's smiling. That's why I say, Being in food and beverage, restaurants, I feel like a lot of times you have to deal with, my steak's not cooked right or my drink's Sure. My I've not I think I might have had over 7 years one complaint about a doughnut. Most people are happy.

They smile. They're like, we're here.

What what can you complain about a doughnut? It's like getting flowers. It's amazing.

Yeah. And we like to give out little doughnut holes to the kids. So on on the weekends, while they're waiting in line, you know, use a doughnut hole. Stay happy.

I love it. Well, thank you so much for taking the time, and, yeah, can't wait to see your next creation.

Alright. Well, thank you for having me. I I'm it was easy and fun. I love it.

Wonderful. It was my pleasure. Thanks for joining us today on our Carlsbad People, Purpose and Impact podcast. If you got value out of our episode today, please hit the follow button on your favorite podcast app, and please tell a friend. Can't wait to see you next time on Carlsbad People, Purpose, and Impact.