Kara Castille’s entrepreneurial spirit was evident from a young age. As a child, she devised a game at the Crawfish Festival in Breaux Bridge by which folks could try to toss quarter in a pickle jar to win a dozen of donuts from her mother, who owned and ran the local Meche’s Donut King.
“I remember always trying to make a dollar as a kid,” she tells Business Report in its new Entrepreneur feature.
By her high school graduation in 2001, Castille was well on her way to running her own donut shop—sacrificing cheerleading and teenage weekends without compromising great grades. She would drive to Baton Rouge, load up her mom’s Tahoe and canvass the Sherwood area with donuts and handshakes.
“I just had this wild fire and zeal to make it work,” she recalls.
Castille had to make it work—her mother’s name was on the line, too, because she cosigned the loan to start Thee Heavenly Donut and ran things in the beginning. It seemed a natural path for a child who practically grew up in business, sleeping on flour sacks at her mom’s shop and watching her father’s success as a salesman.
“I had my dad’s sales personality and my mom’s amazing work ethic. Between those two, I was doomed to be a business owner,” she says.
Her husband runs the operational side of the business; her mother the office. Photos of her two daughters grace the shops’ walls, and she does not discourage their enterprising interests.
“I want my daughters to be part of this, because I’m not just building this for me,” she says. “This is a legacy.”
Sixteen years later, Castille has repaid her mother, opened a second location and learned countless lessons along the way.
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