Can Jay’s hit the sweet spot again?

Nibbling on a fresh glazed donut wrapped in a napkin, Jay’s Donuts proprietor Jay Lindsey patiently abides the rapid-fire questions about his popular shop’s future that are disrupting his morning. “We love our little corner here,” Lindsey says.

He and his wife Ann have carved out a business with character in more than 20 years in this spot. Their recipe: freshly made donuts, quality ingredients, and a steady flow of witticisms on his well-known sign outside. The invective runs from the silly—“Friends don’t let friends eat biscuits,” and “Next to church, we’re the holiest place in town”—to politically acerbic—“The 3rd recount is in: A dozen is still 12. Maybe,” and “Bulletin: No state officials indicted—yet.”

“It’s my dream spot,” Lindsey says. “We’re near one of the largest neighborhoods in the state (Shenandoah), and we’re close to two churches and six private schools.”

But Jay’s Donuts’ days are numbered at its current location, and the business is at a crossroads. After more than two decades at South Harrell’s Ferry Road and O’Neal Lane, the Lindseys find themselves searching for a new home because the city-parish plans to expropriate his land as part of the widening of South Harrell’s Ferry.

The Lindseys learned about their upcoming, involuntary move from a phone company technician who happened to have seen the plans. “We were notified officially in October, but we’ve known about it since April (2008),” Lindsey says.

So now, he and Ann spend their rare days off driving around looking for about a 2,400-square-foot building or a piece of affordable real estate gold where they can start over.

Jay worries the money the city-parish pays them for their property will not come close to the cost of opening somewhere else. “What will it cost to duplicate this?” he asks.