PHOENIX, Aug. 5 (Phoenix Times Online) — When The Local Donut could not make payroll during its worst week of the summer, owner Daniel Tes made an unusual business decision: He publicly asked customers, neighbors and God for help.
The response came through sales rather than a formal investment or loan. Customers filled the Scottsdale shop the next day, while other local businesses prepaid doughnut orders for their own customers. Tes said the surge helped the shop make payroll.
The episode shows how a small business can depend on both daily customer traffic and the relationships it builds in its community. It also shows the limits of what is known about the shop’s finances: No payroll amount, sales total or independent accounting record was disclosed in the reports.
What happened to the shop?
Tes told FOX 10 Phoenix that The Local Donut had faced a difficult summer slow season. He said business pressures grew after spring training and accumulated over several weeks.
“We felt the pressure after spring training to get things ready for summer, and we just couldn’t catch up,” Tes said. “Last week was probably our worst. We couldn’t make payroll.”
Tes opened The Local Donut about 10 years before the 2026 reports. During the crisis, he used social media to be transparent about the shop’s condition and ask for help.
“I kind of had to humble myself and ask for help from the community, ask for help from God,” he said.
The message was not described as a conventional fundraising campaign. Instead, the appeal encouraged people to support the shop by buying its products.
How did customers and businesses respond?
The shop was filled with customers the following day, according to FOX 10 Phoenix’s account. Local businesses also prepaid orders for customers as a “pay-it-forward” gesture, allowing people to receive doughnuts while helping provide cash to the shop.
Tes said the community response helped The Local Donut make payroll. The reports did not identify the participating businesses or give the total value of the prepaid orders.
The support also brought new customers alongside regulars. For a shop whose income depends on daily sales, that kind of immediate traffic can matter more quickly than a long-term financing plan. But the available reports do not show whether the business fully recovered or whether financial pressure continued.
What does “make payroll” mean?
Payroll is the money a business owes its employees for work they have completed. Missing payroll can put workers under immediate financial strain and can damage a company’s ability to retain staff.
For a doughnut shop, payroll is only one part of the cost structure. The business also must pay for ingredients, utilities, rent, equipment, taxes and other operating expenses. The reports did not provide figures for any of those costs.
Tes’s statement indicates that the shop faced a cash-flow problem: It did not have enough available money at that point to cover employee pay. That does not, by itself, establish the shop’s total debt, profitability or long-term financial health.
Why was the community response important?
The response gave the shop immediate revenue while directing support to its employees and local suppliers through ordinary business activity. Customers received doughnuts, workers were paid and the shop gained attention from people who might not have visited before.
Tes described the people who helped as generous and said he wanted to pay that support forward. The reports do not provide evidence of a change in ownership, outside investment or a government program. They describe a short-term community effort centered on purchases and prepaid orders.
The story also leaves important questions unanswered. There is no publicly reported payroll figure, employee count, sales comparison, profit-and-loss statement or independent review of the shop’s finances. It is therefore not possible to measure the size of the rescue or determine whether it solved the business’s broader problems.
What is clear is narrower but significant: A Scottsdale small business said it had reached a point where it could not meet payroll, disclosed that problem publicly, and received enough customer support to cover that immediate obligation, according to Tes and FOX 10 Phoenix.
