Oh those memories! Doughnut shop-owning family thanks Costa Mesa for 39 sweet years
Costa Mesa doughnut lovers were saddened last month to learn a beloved family-owned institution that had operated out of a storefront at 1734 Newport Blvd. for nearly four decades had closed its doors.
Oh Those Donuts offered its namesake fried pastries alongside an assortment of custom-created deli sandwiches during long hours, serving young families, retirees and late-night crowds. But without much fanfare, the enterprise served its last customer on Nov. 14.
“We weren’t in any hurry to close the business, for sure,” said Ken Metro, whose father, Steve, became part owner of the store in 1983 and, in a matter of months, was its sole proprietor. “It’s been a great little business that’s supported my mom and dad for a lot of years.”
Metro, 57, who began working at the shop after high school and went from making doughnuts to learning the finer points of management, said his family had a longstanding arrangement with property owner Jerry Palangian that was made decades earlier, essentially on a handshake.
“His word is gold. And he upheld that commitment for 40 years, we can’t complain,” he said in an interview last week. “[But] he has decided he wanted to try something else.”
Rumors abounded on social media, where forlorn customers wondered if a legal cannabis retailer might move in. Costa Mesa city officials confirmed last month no dispensary applications have been received for that address.
Even Metro speculated on the doughnut shop’s successor, saying someone made an offer to Palangian for a vegan restaurant, but he didn’t know for sure.
He said while his family learned in September the shop’s closure was imminent, it didn’t seem like the right time, given his father was in his 80s, to start over in a new location. And because the family’s agreement with the property owner had been mostly verbal, there wasn’t adequate documentation to allow them to sell the enterprise to a new owner.
Closing in November, although not a happy option, seemed the practical thing to do.
“While we were closing down that Monday, a lot of people were coming up and asking us, what’s going on here?” Metro recalled of the store’s last day. “We had people, regulars, who came in every single day, and they’d sit there for hours.”
Costa Mesa resident Valerie Zaffino, 63, said her favorite order was a Diet Coke or buttermilk bar. She recalled Thursday walking her dog to Oh Those to meet up with her dad, Louis, who’d spend hours out front with a cadre of friends.
“He’d be sitting at a table outside with four or five other guys — they literally had nothing else to do, and they’d sit down there and smoke and do crossword puzzles,” Zaffino said, describing a de facto social club of gentlemen in their 70s.
“The people there were really nice. They knew my dad and took care of him. They used to take the doughnuts down to Share Our Shelves [pantry], whatever they didn’t sell.”
Oh Those was the go-to doughnut spot for Costa Mesa’s John Mourani, a fan of apple fritters and turkey on squaw bread, who often made late-night trips in his college days back in the ’90s. After hanging out at Harp Inn, an Irish bar around the corner where his friend played in a band, he and his friends would walk to the shop.
“It was kind of like the parking lot hangout,” he said. “I met my wife at the Harp Inn, and we used to hang out at Oh Those after the Harp. When our three daughters were born, we introduced them to Oh Those. After church, we’d drive there as a family and get doughnuts — it was a family staple.”
Mourani, 52, recalled how the shop let customers play the lottery or Keno, where numbers were displayed on a digital board and ticked off, like Bingo, offering chances to win.
“We were all disappointed to learn they were closing,” he said Thursday.
Metro said while it was a sad day for all, his family is grateful for the customers and all the fond memories made at the shop over the years.
“We would like to thank everybody who was a part of that business,” he said. “It has quite a history — we’re all going to miss it.”
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