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Rick Nagata, an Aloha Airlines employee, was buying four boxes of doughnuts from Krispy Kreme on his way to work at Kahului Airport to share with co-workers.
He got his first taste of them from friends flying in from Las Vegas, and now he's buying the doughnuts from the new Maui location.
"This is convenient to work, you get good service and it's a hot doughnut," he said, quite simply.
Nagata is the ideal customer for the chain, which has been selling an average of 12,000 doughnuts a day since its grand opening in Kahului Jan. 27. Though the initial hype has died down, sales continue to be steady, with customers flocking in from both the local and tourist base.
The first drive-through customer parked her car at the head of the line 19 hours before the doors opened at 5:30 a.m. on opening day, according to General Manager Gary Bowsher, while a few others spent the night in campers.
Hundreds of customers continue to come, tempted by the hot, glazed doughnuts coming fresh off the conveyer belts. When the neon sign is on in the mornings, Bowsher said, hot doughnuts are handed out free to customers walking in the door.
"There's probably a good percentage of people who've eaten Krispy Kreme before and an equal percentage who have never experienced it," he said. "We get a lot of tourists and people who take the doughnuts to the...