A new restaurant opened in Brooksville next to Luigi’s Pizza called Dough J’s Chicken and Donuts, A Hole lot of Soul. They offer a sandwich coined “The Glazer” which has donut buns sandwiching fried chicken with a maple bacon sauce. It is a sandwich you can tell your friends about.
The owner Jermaine “J” Canty also has a Dough J’s restaurant in Webster, where at times lines of people wait around the building to get their fix of fresh fried chicken, traditional southern soul fare, artisan donuts, espresso, and coffee. He started the Webster restaurant about a year and a half ago, expecting a small business. Due to the Webster restaurant’s popularity and that many of their customers were coming from Brooksville and Spring Hill, they knew they had a great concept and needed to expand. The new Dough J’s in Brooksville is open Tuesday through Thursday from 6am to 2pm. On Friday and Saturday they are open from 6am to 6pm.
Jermaine is friendly and working on streamlining the new restaurant. He splits his time between the kitchen and assisting customers. The restaurant has limited seating and many of the patrons order for takeout. This is not fast food, the food is made from scratch, but that does mean a slightly longer wait.
Dough J’s regular chicken sandwich comes with coleslaw on the fried chicken and has a honey mustard sauce. For the fried chicken you have the choice of chicken strips or a bone-in chicken breast. Jermaine says that the bone-in chicken breast sandwich is the one he grew up on. The fried chicken breast is moist and fresh out of the deep frier.
Dough J’s Chicken meal comes with a side and a roll (we received a biscuit). We chose to try the collards as our side dish and they were excellent. They had the perfect texture and melt in your mouth flavor. We also tried an additional side of fried okra, which was nicely breaded and not viscous at all.
The donuts were fresh and very sweet. We ordered the apple fritter and a chocolate coconut donut and they were a hit with the kids.
Dough J’s is a family restaurant. J and his wife work at the restaurant along with their oldest daughter and son. Currently J is usually at the Brooksville restaurant while his wife is holding down the fort at the Webster restaurant. The Canty family has five kids and more will probably be joining that family business as they grow up.
The idea to create Dough J’s was a process which involved a lot of prayer. J’s wife created the seasoning for fried chicken one day and Jermaine could not stop raving about how good it was. One morning she asked what do you think about opening a donut shop. He said no at first. Then he thought about the chicken and waffle restaurants and suggested a chicken and donut restaurant, which at first seemed crazy, but over time came to make sense. Then they had to name it, Jermaine made the donuts, so he suggested Dough J’s. At first they dismissed the name, but it was catchy.
Jermaine is a general contractor and already owned 3 buildings in downtown Webster. He started the first Dough J’s in one of his buildings. He moved to Webster because he “wanted to get out of the concrete jungle.” So he purchased a 20 acre homestead in Webster.
Jermaine is also a pastor. He runs the Bread of Life Apostolic Ministry right next to Dough J’s in Webster. Jermaine also has followed his missionary calling visiting numerous countries and currently has 3 churches in South Africa.
Dough J’s is a great place to get your southern fried chicken fix.
1(352)-848-3002
