Glam Doll Donuts reopens to long lines days after employees filmed Alex Pretti’s killing

Teresa Fox and Arwyn Birch were on a Costco run the morning of Jan. 24.

The owners of Nicollet Avenue’s Glam Doll Donuts were walking the aisles when they got a message from the staff: ICE agents were on their street. They ditched their half-filled carts and ran to their car. As they were on the way to the store they opened more than a decade ago, the message came through: “They shot a man.”

Fox and Birch raced to get to their employees who were locked inside, watching history unfold outside the window. Videos show federal agents in front of the shop moments earlier preparing an immigration enforcement action.

“The rumors were they were profiling someone on the street and we let them into the shop,” Fox said. “Our doors were already locked. They’ve been locked for weeks.”

One of her employees had taken video of Alex Pretti’s killing across the street; in the immediate aftermath, the staff opened the doors to protesters and passersby seeking shelter and first aid from chemical irritants.

As Fox and Birch tried to approach the store, the street was swarmed with people and there was no way to get through. The closest they could get was 26th Street, outside the Black Forest Inn, their landlord.

“I’m just trying to get in to get to them and I can’t,” said Fox. “And it’s like a million degrees below zero and I have no hat, no gloves, and I’m trying to find a way in.”

“We’re just sitting there like, ‘don’t shoot us,’” Fox said.

Agents directed them to drive away, but protesters mistook them for ICE and began throwing things at the car. The two took refuge inside their landlord’s nearby apartment and made it to Glam Doll around 12:30, more than three hours after the shooting.

“By the time we got there, they’d opened all the doors and were letting people in and helping them,” Fox said. “That wasn’t even my direction, that’s just the kind of people they are.”

Employees had asked if they could give the doughnuts away. “Give them everything,” Fox recalled saying.

By the end of the day, the shelves were empty

Glam Doll, with its retro glam punk aesthetic, reopened at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 28. While Fox dodged phone calls from national media, messages poured in from all over the world: Australia, Louisiana, Las Vegas, Ohio. “I’ve gotten like 20 orders from Cincinnati,” she said.

Former employees, who immediately jumped in to help, joined the current staff behind the counter. Customers chose from flavors like Bombshell, Misfit, Darling and Femme Fatale while expressing gratitude and asking over and over again, “How are you?”

Like many restaurants along Eat Street, the busyness at Glam Doll is a reversal from recent days, when business had slowed to a trickle and owners were contending with a bleak financial outlook. Now, there’s a steady stream of customers filling tables as a memorial to Pretti grows on the street outside, surrounded by television cameras and reporters.

“That memorial is never going away,” Fox said. “My staff, they’re all in their 20s and they are doing great, but ...” Fox wonders aloud what will happen when they all have a moment to stop and have to grapple with what they’ve been through. There have been offers of free counseling for the staff, she said, and they’re working to vet those offers.

Fox says they are overcome with gratitude and exhaustion.