Third Avenue bids adieu to Donut Stop

Another one bites the dust.

Donut Stop, a popular family-run eatery located at 9406 Third Avenue, shuttered on Sunday, November 30 after more than 30 years on the commercial strip.

“It was getting harder and harder to stay open,” said owner Alex Diamantopoulos who’s been running the one-stop breakfast spot alongside his father John since 2001. The local eatery – famous for its affordable menu – had been in business since 1981.

Alex told this paper that he attributes the downfall of the Donut Stop to both a change in regulations and a change in the neighborhood.

“Once Key Food closed down the street, the neighborhood was affected. Business got slower and slower and with stricter regulations, it’s been very hard,” he said, stressing his belief that former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s stricter health regulations have a habit of “picking on the little guys.”

According to customers, Donut Stop was known for good prices and, most of all, good eats.

“Breakfast here is amazing,” lauded Facebook user Alex Gilkis. “Like your Mom makes it at home. Best I ever had.”

“My second home,” wrote Joan Morgan Shaulinski once the Donut Stop announced it would be going out of business. “I will miss it daily.”

“Customers came for a good breakfast,” Alex noted. From freshly baked donuts to bacon-egg-and-cheeses to what Diamantopoulous called the “best burger in town,” Donut Shop had it all, and served it in a classic diner-style luncheonette that kept diners coming back for more.

“The customers that came around here were the friendliest people; they were like family to us,” lauded Diamantopoulous, a Bay Ridge boy himself. “People came here to socialize.”

And, according to the owners, some of those people came from as far as Queens.

“Everybody told everybody,” he said. “If you came here, your neighbors knew where to get a good breakfast. It was good food at a cheap price.”

According to Alex, he and his family still own the building that houses the first-floor eatery and the father-son duo is keeping its fingers crossed that it can lease the space to someone who wants to keep the tradition alive.

“We’ve been here for so long,” he said. “Most of all, we want to say thank you.”