From Patty Fisher at the San Jose Mercury News:Kip Berdiansky is a funny guy. He even tried stand-up comedy, though he had more success as an engineer.
When he decided to open his own small business, he wanted to create something fun, zany, crazy. Psycho, if you will.
So he and his racquetball partner, Jordan Zweigoron, opened Psycho Donuts in Campbell. It is, indeed, a crazy place. There's a "Bates Motel" sign on the wall. You can sit in a padded cell and have your photo taken wearing a real straitjacket. For free.The doughnuts, which are insanely fresh and tasty, amplify the psycho theme. Topped with stuff like pretzels and cereal, they have names like "coco kooks," "manic malt" and "split personality." A doughnut oozing jelly with a face drawn in chocolate is called "massive head trauma."
Hysterical, right?
Folks seem to think so. Since opening last month, Psycho Donuts has been selling out every day. On weekends, the line is out the door.
"It's just a lot of silliness," said Berdiansky, who's delighted with the buzz his store is creating. "The whole world is crazy right now, and we wanted to create a place where families could not spend a lot of money, and have a lot of fun."
Not everyone is laughing
But not everyone is joining in the fun. Advocates for the mentally ill find Psycho Donuts in the realm of bad taste.
If you've been in a padded cell, it's not a joke. And if your husband came home from Iraq with permanent brain damage, you might not chuckle at a doughnut called "massive head trauma."
How about clinical depression? Now, there's a laugh.
"Psycho Donuts really does hurt people who have mental illness, and they are among the most dispossessed people in our society," said John Mitchem, president of the local chapter of National Alliance on Mental Illness. "Imagine if they made fun of people with cancer or HIV. The one group people still find acceptable to poke derision at is people with mental illness."
He's right. For centuries, they have been warehoused in hospitals and jails or left to die on the streets. The stigma keeps people from seeking treatment.
It doesn't help when the president makes Special Olympics jokes on late night TV. And it doesn't help when a family-oriented shop makes light of seriously ill people.
When I stopped in to buy some doughnuts and see what all the fuss was about, I thought the owners were out of their minds. Sure, the doughnuts themselves are great — my favorite was "split personality", with chocolate sprinkles on half — but all the trappings were, well, disturbing.
When Berdiansky, dressed in a white lab coat, invited a little girl to have her photo taken in the padded cell wearing a straitjacket, I was relieved that the bewildered child demurred.
During a break in the foot traffic, Berdiansky sat with me in the "group therapy" area to explain his concept. He never meant to stir up resentment or make fun of people, he says. He just wants to sell doughnuts.
"We wanted to reinvent the doughnut. Like why not change the shape? Why not put cereal on it? We were coming up with all these ideas and thought, hey, that's kinda crazy."
So they took the crazy theme and ran with it. "I don't want to offend anybody. I want to make people happy."
How can he make the mental health advocates happy? He's got his life savings in the shop, so he can't afford to change the name.
But a few minor tweaks short of a name change: Start by ditching the idea of naming doughnuts after diseases. A great doughnut by any other name is still as sweet.
And by all means, get rid of the padded cell. And the straitjacket. Not funny, never was.
