Hours before the Sweet Land of Liberty Parade passed through downtown LaGrange, there was already a steady flow of morning shoppers at Dixie Donuts on Lafayette Square.

Co-owner Kimberly Hunter makes all the donuts for Dixie Donuts from scratch at the shop, and her fresh donuts sold out by 1 p.m. She said the decision to open Dixie Donuts on Independence Day was co-incidental.

“All the stars were aligned,” Hunter said. “It is the birth of the country that we are celebrating and the birth of our donut shop.”

Dixie Donuts is family owned and operated, and on Thursday, Hunter’s family worked together to ring up orders, package donuts and decorate and greet customers.

“We are really excited,” said Co-owner Sondra Kelley, who is also Hunter’s mother. “LaGrange town square seems to be just exploding with growth, and we are happy to be part of it. It makes us excited. It is our dream. We’ve always wanted to have a little shop where you make people happy, and Kim is super at what she does. It’s her dream.”

Hunter and her husband moved to the area four years ago, and while he works at Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia, she wanted to find a way to make use of her background as a Johnson & Wales University trained chef.

“My husband works for Kia, [but] we are both actually professionally trained chefs,” Hunter said. “We moved from Chrysler to Kia, and I started making donuts for his crew. They were like, ‘Why don’t you do this for real, all the time?’”

Hunter said she learned about the downtown location from her realtor when she and her husband bought their home, and she was surprised by the number of supportive messages that the shop received from the community even before it officially opened its doors.

“We are not from here, but we feel like LaGrange has embraced us, and we kind of want to give back,” Hunter said. “We just wanted to offer it because we love food, and we want to be able to bring quality things to the community.”

Hunter said her favorite donut is the maple bacon donut, while her mother’s favorite is the anything but vanilla donut. 

Hunter said her husband came up with the name, Dixie Donuts, because they are now living south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Dixie Donuts is located at 36 South Lafayette Square in LaGrange. To learn more about Dixie Donuts, call (706) 756-1290 or visit them on Facebook.