Harry Winokur (27 November 1910 – 29 February 2004) was an American businessman. He created the

Mister Donut Mister Donut is an international chain of doughnut stores, operating mostly in Asia. It was founded in the United States in 1956 by Harry Winokur. Primary offerings include doughnuts, coffee, muffins and pastries. After being acquired by Allied ...

chain of doughnut shops. The chain grew to include 550 shops before being bought out by the parent company of

Dunkin' Donuts DD IP Holder LLC, doing business as Dunkin', and originally Dunkin' Donuts, is an American multinational coffee and doughnut company, as well as a quick service restaurant. It was founded by Bill Rosenberg in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 19 ...

in 1990. He was awarded the

Horatio Alger Award The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans is a nonprofit organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, that was founded in 1947 to promote and ensure the American Dream for future generations, honor the achievements of outstanding Un ...

in 1965.

Biography

Born in Boston to a low-income family, Winokur began working in his father's

grocery A grocery store (American English, AE), grocery shop or grocer's shop (British English, BE) or simply grocery is a retail store that primarily retails a general range of food Product (business), products, which may be Fresh food, fresh or Food p ...

store at age eight and later sold

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

s. After high school, he pursued correspondence courses and became a certified

public accountant Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the title of qualified accountants in numerous countries in the English-speaking world. It is generally equivalent to the title of chartered accountant in other English-speaking countries. In the United Sta ...

by age 25. Mister Donut Sendaichuodori Shop

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Winokur shifted from

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

to start a catering service for

factory worker A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. They ...

s. Noticing the demand for coffee and donuts, he established his first doughnut shop in 1949. The shop eventually evolved into the Mister Donut chain with over 600 locations. Following a 1970 sale of the company, Winokur continued in an advisory capacity, during which the chain expanded to over 800 outlets. Winokur died on 29 February 2004 at age 93 during Leap Day.

References

American businesspeople 1910 births 2004 deaths Place of birth missing {{US-business-bio-1910s-stub