26-05-2025
Doughnut shop had to close in SLO County beach town. What's taking its place?
A beloved doughnut shop in Cayucos closed its teal doors last month after less than a year in business — but a new spot is already slated to take over the vacant space.
The bakery, Surf Rat Donuts, rested at 101 D St. just a few steps away from the beach itself. A quaint spot for solid business during the summer, co-owner Ben Brown said he opened the shop July 4.
'We wanted to share basically the kind of donuts that we like when we go visit other areas,' Brown told The Tribune. 'That's why we really wanted to try to bring it here, because no one's doing it, and no one is still doing it and I think that was the whole goal.'
Brown made the doughnuts from scratch with his wife Jessica and kids, aiming to provide warm doughnuts for every customer, but tough winter months proved fatal for the business.
'We would do really well during the summer, but we can't use the profit for the three months that we're open to sustain or to pay for the overhead for the slow nine months,' Brown said.
Surf Rat Donuts also found some success in weekends and local events. But while an influx of people over social media supported the business, there weren't enough local visits to keep it going.
'Everyone loved this. Our following was growing and we were getting people from out of the area. Everything was going great,' Brown said. 'It's just, I don't know. It's not enough local business during the off season.'
Surf Rat Donuts officially closed 10 months later on April 13, near the time its lease ended. Brown said he was looking for a place that still served food to take over the lease.
'We made a hard decision right before this summer to make way for another, like a food, a lunch, something that people would eat everyday,' Brown said.
Brown went to friends that he made from starting up Surf Rat Donuts, and eventually he gave a local couple the opportunity to start another business.
Owners of Pie in the Sky Pizza and High Tide Deli, Ellen and Jeremy Sizemore, were approached by Brown about taking over the spot's lease.
'We always have a kind of Rolodex of business ideas in our head of, wouldn't it be fun to do blank?,' Ellen Sizemore told The Tribune. 'For that one, we weren't necessarily looking for a place actively to start a burger place, but when that location came up, we thought, 'What would go well here? What would be a good addition to Cayucos?''
Enter Mosey's Burgers.
The Sizemores said they saw an opportunity for burgers — smashburgers in particular — and tallow fries to be the stars of the menu at the seaside space.
'It's a really simple menu with very quality ingredients,' she said. 'We're not going to use seed oils either with the frying, so that's going to be a big draw as well.'
Sizemore emphasized the simplicity of Mosey's Burgers, with the name symbolizing 'moseying' on down to the beach to grab a burger, and the tranquility and slowness of the small beach town.
'In Cayucos, it's such a laid-back environment that people are kind of moseying on down to the water,' she said. 'We were looking for that kind of style of using an iconic name.'
Sizemore said the restaurant's ambiance is set for vintage 1970s and early 1980s looks. It's already painted in retro orange, yellow and blue stripes.
Mosey's Burgers is set to open in the next month, and its Instagram page is teasing the light construction and locally sourced burgers.
