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We're in the lobby of his new, bigger-and-better shop in Little Italy on the ground floor of the 1 Columbia Place commercial high rise. It was a big deal for downtowners when he uprooted the beloved Donut Bar from its former location in East Village. at B Street shop, which opened in 2013, had weekend morning lines that stretched down the block and snaked around the corner on Sixth Avenue. Campa and staff would make 2,000 donuts in the morning. Sometimes they'd be sold out for the day by noon. e new location — with its techy, augmented reality walls that come alive on your cell phone — is a fresh start. Front-of-the- house is less cramped. ere's a shelf filled with popular merch. And there are plenty of indoor and outdoor spaces for people to sit down with the mountainous treats they've ogled over and selected from Donut Bar's pristine display case. A bigger kitchen was a dream come true for Campa. Now, there's ample space to make more than one batch of donuts in the mornings. Sellouts are a thing of the past. When the store closes at 2pm, it's possible they've sold 3,000 to 5,000 donuts. e sky's the limit for Campa, a native Angelino with dark, wavy hair and Hollywood good looks. He rarely stops smiling and seems to have an endless supply of enthusiasm. His positivity is the one factor that does not remind me of the lead character in e Bear, Chef Carmy Berzatto, played by Jeremy Allen White. If you stream the series on Hulu you've watched Carmy stress over the menu, obsess over restaurant cleanliness, and overthink food and service presentation. At the time of our conversation, Campa had not seen any episodes of e Bear. However, in his parallel universe, Campa tells me about the extensive interview process he created for employees. And how each team member has to always be "on," extending friendliness and service as if every customer were a Bon Appétit food reviewer. Like Carmy, Campa will get down on his hands and knees and scrub the floor. It wasn't hard to get Campa talking about the floor situation in his back-of-the-house service area. It had just been installed when he opened the new location. "It was a sealed, finished concrete, but it just wasn't performing and didn't have the aesthetic I liked," Campa says. "And I couldn't live with it." A lot of restaurateurs might've just let it go. Not Campa. He hired a vendor to strip up all the old sealant and sand it down. e crew arrived at 2pm. at night at 10:30, Campa asked how many passes with a grinder had been made. e answer was six. He asked for two more passes. Overtime for the redo came out of Campa's pocket. "e original contractor did a fine job," he says. "ey did great, but great wasn't good enough for me. I wanted it to be perfect." He studied perfectionism in the high-end hotel industry. "I've taken everything I've learned from working for Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, and Hyatt Hotels, and put it into this little donut shop," Campa says. His kitchen career started in Hawaii. At 18 years old, he bought a one-way ticket and moved to the islands with just two suitcases in hand. On his first day, he got a job at what is now the Grand Wailea Maui as a busboy in the Volcano Bar. While picking up dirty dishes, he saw opportunity. "If you do things the right way, you can be anything you want in hotels," Campa says. He worked for a spell at the Ritz-Carlton Maui, Kapalua. When he started to miss home, he transferred to the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel in Orange County, and then to the Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel (the setting for Pretty Woman). He came to San Diego via a job in Carlsbad at the Four Seasons Resort Aviara (now Park Hyatt Aviara Hotel & Spa). After buying a home in Oceanside, Campa decided to take a break from hotels. Already a motorcycle enthusiast, his entrepreneurial spirit kicked into gear and he started a motorcycle rental company. It grew to five locations across the country, while he became a competitive racer and co-host of an industry TV show. Eventually, Campa decided motorcycles were too expensive of a hobby. He hung up the race leathers and put his chef 's coat back on. He recalled making donuts (for fun) in a kitchen fryer while working in Hawaii. He aimed his entrepreneurial efforts at finding a location to open a shop. It could have been anywhere in the country, but he chose downtown San Diego. "In 2012 I got on a bicycle and rode up and down the downtown streets," he says. "I asked everybody where the closest donut shop was. Everybody said there wasn't one." irty minutes after the doors opened on March 15, 2013, he sold out all 300 donuts he'd made that morning. A donut mogul was born. Campa says he works at least ten hours every day of the year except Christmas and anksgiving. "Work-life balance is for the birds," he says. "I love what I do. Yes, I know I've set high expectations. But I have the ability, the energy, the charisma, and the foolishness to continue to set that bar high and make certain to reach it every single day. It's absurd, but that's what I do." Spoken just like e Bear. donutbarsd.com @ranchandcoast RANCH & COAST MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2024 103