By many people’s reckoning, Bobby Nivens made the greatest doughnut in North Carolina, a deep-fried, sugar-glazed marvel worth a two-hour drive and a long wait in line — a token of summer, youth and traditions that do not vanish.
For 51 years, he and his wife, Maxine, opened Britt’s Donuts on the last weekend of March, raising the shop’s twin garage doors on the Carolina Beach Boardwalk and signaling that spring had triumphantly arrived with sandy toes, suntans and weeklong vacations close behind.
He made one doughnut: glazed and light enough to melt in the mouth without chewing — a formula so time-honored and unchanging that Nivens never bought a new rolling pin after half a century.
Opening a white paper bag and pulling out a warm Britt’s doughnut offered the rare chance to relive pleasures from the past without thinking time had stolen everything that used to be good…