NEW YORK - In a city where shops come and go, the Donut Pub on 14th Street has been a staple, selling sweet pieces of fried dough to a constant stream of customers.
The business is the brainchild of Buzzy Geduld. He's not a baker but a dough-maker of another kind, a Wall Street titan who opened the shop in 1964, years before his finance career took off.
"People thought that was pretty interesting," said Geduld. "And that as opposed to being an MBA out of Harvard, I was a guy who actually worked with my hands and worked my way up, and that didn't hurt."
The Brooklyn born Geduld and his brother began opening doughnut shops in Manhattan in the early 1960s after their early Wall Street careers hit a dead end.
At its peak, their doughnut empire had six locations. When Buzzy went into the Army Reserve and eventually back to work as a trader in the late 60s, they sold all of the doughnut shops except the location on 14th street.
"I knew that if it didn't work out on Wall Street and I was working for someone else and I got fired, I had a place," Geduld told us. "And then as things worked out on Wall Street, this was sort of a good luck charm."
A good luck charm indeed.
In 2000, he sold his trading firm Herzog Heine Geduld for nearly a billion dollars.
These days, he works at the hedge fund he founded.
Meanwhile, the Donut Pub with its old school charm and unique flavors has become a doughnut destination.
Yet Geduld says he never thought of expanding until space became available in a friend's building on Broadway in the East Village.
In a few weeks, a second Donut Pub will open and will be run by Geduld's 23 year old daughter.
For Geduld, both careers have been a dream.
"I've been very fortunate," said Geduld. "I've never considered either one of these things jobs; they were more like hobbies. Sunday nights I've always looked forward to going to work, whether it was doughnuts or Wall Street."