Why Can't I Get a Donut for Breakfast in Shreveport?

Tuesdays are staff meeting days here at Shreveport's Townsquare Media. Six radio stations worth of programmers, digital editors and on-air personalities getting together to discuss the directions, plans and ideas for their respective stations.

And what better way to kick off the new month, I thought, than to make a quick run up the interstate to the Southern Maid Donuts on Hearne Avenue and grab a couple dozen of hot n' fresh for our little get together?

Not so fast. Southern Maid on Hearne Avenue is closed. No, not as in shut down, all the time, doors are locked forever closed. But, as the sign taped haphazardly to the door said, "Tempory New Hours..."

Pretty sure what they mean is "temporary." And there's far more wrong here than just poor spelling.

tsm

Yep, it looks like the labor shortage that has hit so many businesses across the Shreveport and Bossier City area has smacked the legendary Southern Maid right in the ol' donut hole. And maybe even a little lower.

Southern Maid, usually bustling with morning customers, now dark and lifeless at 9am. The place that sold Elvis Presley donuts (Elvis, for God's sake!), closed for breakfast-time, now open only from 3 til 10pm and, as the signs adds, "closed Teusday."

tsm

But why? Why is Southern Maid closed for what one would think would be the busiest time of day? Not enough workers? We've all seen the rapidly drawn signs at businesses all over the ArkLaTex explaining short staffing and begging for our patience.

Or maybe it's a link missing in the supply chain. And not the stories about the hundreds of boats with everything from medicine to Christmas toys to tires sitting unloaded off the coast of California. But maybe the shortage of drivers responsible with trucking goods all over our country has finally hit home.

And you can't hit home harder than when you hit Southern Maid Donuts.

And hopefully, their sign is right. Hopefully these new hours really are just "tempory."

tsm