{"id":17711,"date":"2025-10-23T19:46:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T19:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/17711\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T19:46:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T19:46:11","slug":"still-glazy-after-all-these-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/17711\/","title":{"rendered":"Still Glazy After All These Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago, Wynwood still felt like a secret. The art walls were new, parking was free, and you could still stumble into something cool without seeing it first on Instagram. That\u2019s when a small, restored 1950s Aljoa camper popped up in Wynwood one weekend <\/a>and started serving doughnuts that didn\u2019t look or taste like anything else in Miami.<\/p>\n

The camper was the idea of South Florida natives Amanda Pizarro Rodriguez and her then-boyfriend, now husband, Andy Rodriguez; a Miami couple with a fryer, a pop-up permit, and a vision that most people didn\u2019t quite understand yet. <\/p>\n

Miami wasn\u2019t known for its doughnuts, let alone artisanal ones filled with guava and cream cheese or topped with br\u00fbl\u00e9ed meringue. But people lined up anyway. Then they kept coming back. And soon, the Salty<\/a> became a local phenomenon.<\/p>\n

\"\"From left: The Salty co-founders Andy Rodriguez and Amanda Pizarro Rodriguez inside their original camper, circa January 2016<\/p>\n

The Chaos and the Camper Days<\/p>\n

The couple\u2019s weekends in a Wynwood parking lot quickly became a citywide ritual. \u201cThe first few weeks were just excitement and community,\u201d Amanda recalls. \u201cThen it turned into chaos. The lines got longer, the heat got worse, and we were trying to keep up.\u201d Locals would drive from Kendall, Coral Gables, or Broward just to stand in line for hours for the buttery and soft brioche doughnuts. Andy ran the register. Amanda packed boxes and delivered batches from a commissary kitchen in North Miami. \u201cWe had people fainting in line,\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cWe had no idea what we were doing, but the energy kept us going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those early months were messy, exhausting, and exactly what Miami didn\u2019t know it needed. The Salty Donut had carved its own corner of Miami life, proof that something handmade, playful, and deeply local could also be worth the wait. <\/p>\n

\"\"Lines wrapped around the block every weekend at the pop-up camper in Wynwood in 2015 and 2016<\/p>\n

From Pop-Up Camper to a Permanent Wynwood Fixture<\/p>\n

By the time their first permanent shop opened in Wynwood<\/a> in 2016, Miami\u2019s dining scene was shifting, too. Third-wave coffee was booming. Panther Coffee and Zak the Baker were household names<\/a>. The Salty Donut naturally joined that wave, merging pastry techniques with Cuban nostalgia, as seen in their now-iconic guava and cheese doughnut or their smoked cortadito, inspired by Amanda\u2019s grandmother\u2019s cafe con leche trick: always add a pinch of salt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was important for us to make it feel like Miami,\u201d Andy says. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to do classic French pastry; we wanted flavors people here would recognize, but elevated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after came a second shop in South Miami,<\/a> then a leap few would have predicted. In 2020, their third location opened in Dallas. \u201cWe loved Texas. It was growing fast and had the kind of food culture we wanted to be part of.\u201d Dallas worked. Then came Austin, Tampa, Orlando, Charlotte, and Nashville. Today, the company has 21 locations in seven states, with additional locations planned for the future.<\/p>\n

\"AThe Coconut Grove location opened with its upgraded logo and rebrand, \u201cthe Salty\u201d<\/p>\n

Dropping \u201cDonut\u201d and a Menu Expansion<\/p>\n

Somewhere along the way, the Salty Donut became simply the Salty. The rebrand occurred four years ago,<\/a> in March of 2020, right at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic \u2014 long before the menu was updated. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t want to box ourselves in,\u201d Andy says. \u201cWe always knew we wanted to do more than donuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

That \u201cmore\u201d officially arrived in May of this year with a new menu, which turned the Salty into something closer to an all-day caf\u00e9. The new lineup includes croissant sandwiches, toasts, and salads, alongside the classics that made them famous.<\/p>\n

The expansion wasn\u2019t random. It was inspired by \u201cSalty Sundays,\u201d small neighborhood markets Amanda used to organize at the South Miami shop years ago. \u201cWe\u2019d bake loaves of bread, cookies, croissants\u2026 people loved it,\u201d she says. \u201cWe stopped when things got too busy, but that idea stayed with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The new lineup includes croissant sandwiches, toasts, and salads, alongside the classic doughnuts that made the Salty famous.
\nMiami Roots That Travel<\/p>\n

Even as the brand expanded across the country, its Miami roots remained obvious and apparently contagious. In markets like Dallas and Denver, they initially tried to tone down the Latin flavors, assuming no one would care about guava or coquito. They were wrong. \u201cWe\u2019d get emails like, \u2018Where\u2019s the guava doughnut?\u2019\u201d Andy says. \u201cTurns out everyone wants a little taste of Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Salty\u2019s reach mirrors a bigger story: Miami restaurants finding an audience well beyond city limits. For years, the city\u2019s reputation was defined by restaurants imported from New York or L.A. Now, homegrown brands like the Salty, Coyo Taco, and Pura Vida are expanding nationwide<\/a>, rather than waiting for someone else to arrive.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time, Miami isn\u2019t just receiving ideas from other cities,\u201d Andy says. \u201cIt\u2019s sending them out. It\u2019s cool to see that we can go to places like Nashville or Dallas and bring a little bit of Miami there, and have people love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The future is sweet (and salty) for the Rodriguezes, who have plans to open more shops across the U.S. and hope to appear in grocery stores soon<\/p>\n

The Future Looks Sweet (And Salty)<\/p>\n

Ten years in, the brand that started in a camper is still evolving. The Salty\u2019s latest act includes its first-ever product that ships nationwide, giving fans a way to get a taste no matter where they live. Amanda teases it as \u201ca mash-up nobody\u2019s done before,\u201d the result of months of testing to make sure it travels well. There\u2019s also a local celebration planned this December at the Wynwood shop: a smaller, more nostalgic version of their early \u201cDonut Day\u201d parties, which once drew hundreds. \u201cIt just feels right to bring it back home,\u201d Amanda says.<\/p>\n

The next chapter for the Salty is about making the brand a part of people\u2019s daily routine, not just a weekend treat. \u201cYou can pay almost the same price for a drink made with artificial syrup somewhere else,\u201d Andy says. \u201cOr you can come here and get something made from scratch, with real ingredients. The question now is how to make that choice as easy and convenient as possible.\u201d There\u2019s talk of grocery partnerships, more caf\u00e9-style stores, and continued growth across the US. But the non-negotiables remain the same. \u201cInnovation, quality, and guest experience,\u201d Andy says. \u201cThe goal is to keep surprising people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, the Salty was a Wynwood destination for foodies. Now it\u2019s a national brand that still feels like it belongs to Miami \u2014 and that will always be the sweetest part.<\/p>\n

The Salty. Multiple area locations, including 50 NW 24th St., Ste. 107, Miami; 305-639-8501; saltydonut.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ten years ago, Wynwood still felt like a secret. The art walls were new, parking was free, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1298,7487,1299,225,227,226,2310,309],"class_list":{"0":"post-17711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-bakery","9":"tag-coffee","10":"tag-dessert","11":"tag-hialeah","12":"tag-hialeah-headlines","13":"tag-hialeah-news","14":"tag-interviews","15":"tag-wynwood"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}