Brenda Rigby says it's not hard to get up early every day, because she gets to go to the sweetest job in the world.

Rigby has been managing the ScrumDiddilyUmptious Donuts LLC shop in Spokane Valley for two years.

"It's my life," she says. "It's so fun, and I get to be close with everybody."

ScrumDiddilyUmptious Donuts, which was founded in 1982 as Something Sweet Donuts, is one a few independent donut makers remaining in the Spokane area. The shop occupies 2,400 square feet of leased space in the Hico Village retail center, at 1201 N. Barker Road, having moved there six years ago from smaller quarters in Otis Orchards. It has seven employees.

When Rigby arrives and opens the doors at 5:30 a.m., the display cases are filled with hundreds of warm, fresh doughnuts. Within minutes, customers start trickling in, greeted by the blended aroma of sweet treats and stout coffee.

On many mornings, she runs the shop by herself, cheerily bouncing between customers at the counter and the drive-thru window.

Rigby knows the regulars by name and preferences.

If she's busy some call out a friendly greeting and help themselves to coffee and a newspaper until she can catch up to them.

The shop has a seating capacity of 30, and it's often full, Rigby says.

"Sometimes it gets crazy in here," she says.

The shop's biggest sellers include apple fritters and maple bars, Rigby says.

"If you're going to run out of any doughnuts, do not run out of maple bars," she advises. "Maple bars go with anything. I make bacon-maple bars that are to die for."

ScrumDiddilyUmptious also is famous for its variety of fritters, especially its blueberry fritters, she claims.

Other store specialties include PB&J (peanut butter and jelly) and PB-chocolate squares, raspberry bear claws, tiger tails twisted with regular and chocolate dough, and seasonal pumpkin cake doughnuts.

Of course, the store carries a selection of traditional doughnuts, including old-fashioned, glazed, filled, chocolate-frosted, and cinnamon doughnuts.

Rigby says she trains younger employees good work ethics, including "how to be kind and love each other and be family. We have a perfect team. We all work well together."

Terry Holmes, who owns ScrumDiddilyUmptious and lives on a ranch in northwestern Montana's Yaak River country, comes into the shop on Mondays and Tuesdays to meet with customers and handle back-office duties.

Holmes says he recruited Rigby from another business in Otis Orchards to be the face of ScrumDiddilyUmptious.

"A doughnut shop needs a personality that loves people," he says. "Brenda has that personality."

Holmes bought the doughnut shop—then named Something Sweet Donuts—in 2006, when it was located on Wellesley Avenue in Otis Orchards.

He says an uncle had been the doughnut master at Something Sweet for 24 years when former owner Len Soper decided he wanted to retire and sell the business.

"My uncle gave me a jingle," he says. "He wanted to make sure the business was kept in good hands."

Holmes, an entrepreneur experienced in buying and selling small businesses, was living in North Carolina at the time and was interested in owning a business closer to his native Montana.

"I never thought I would own a doughnut business, but I enjoy it," he says. "Better than 99 percent of the customers have a smile on their face when they leave. That's what I like."

He renamed the business ScrumDiddilyUmptious Donuts LLC, borrowing from the self-explanatory adjective coined by children's author Roald Dahl in his most popular work, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

When Holmes took over the business, it was mostly a wholesale doughnut bakery that delivered premium doughnuts to area stores, he says. The shop had a strong neighborhood walk-in base, but Holmes says its former, smaller location on East Wellesley limited its retail sales.

Despite changes in the name and location, Holmes didn't want the shop to lose its original neighborhood following.

"We wanted to recognize the old-timers," he says. "When we moved here in 2007, we offered free doughnuts and coffee for a month if they followed us over."

He says 15 to 30 customers from the Otis Orchards days come to ScrumDiddilyUmptious on any given day, and the shop keeps a shelf stocked with more than 20 coffee mugs that regulars have brought in for their own use.

After moving to the Barker Road location in 2007, ScrumDiddilyUmptious increased its focus on the retail side, quadrupling walk-in sales, and cutting back on wholesale deliveries to just over a third of its total sales.

Holmes says ScrumDiddilyUmptious still uses Soper's original recipes, making 200 dozen to 300 dozen doughnuts a day.

"We continue to use all the recipes he developed with no additives or preservatives and 100 percent vegetable oil," Holmes says.

He adds, "Even the glazes and frostings are made from scratch every day."

Soper visits the store nearly every day, Holmes says, adding, "Many of the old-timers are his friends."

Dan Tieman, an Otis Orchards resident, says he's been a regular customer since long before Holmes bought the doughnut shop and moved it.

Now, he brings his grandson in about once a month.

"I usually have a maple bar and my grandson gets the ones with custard filling," Tieman says. "Nice people work here, and there's usually a nice crowd."

John Clift also has been coming every day since before the shop moved from Otis Orchards.

He's cut back on the doughnuts, though, usually just opting for coffee and conversation with other patrons every day.

Rigby, though, says she can't help but eat a doughnut every day when she comes into the shop.

"I have to," she says. "They are always so good."