John’s Space Age Donuts, 50-year-old Overland Park landmark, closing next week

The Russians finally won, I guess: John’s Space Age Donuts, maker of delicious fried dough since the Cold War, closes permanently in a few days. Owner John Taylor Jr. tells the Shawnee Mission Post today that “sometime next week,” the last apple fritter will be dropped in the last bag and sent home with the last customer. 

Pitch contributor Chase Castor rode dawn patrol at the shop back in June to produce this photo essay. If it’s quaint to say he found a sugar-sprinkled time capsule there, a plain little museum to what people misremember as a simpler time, it’s not false. Because John’s represents the last business of its kind around here — certainly in downtown Overland Park, a place that’s enduring a surge of corporate urbanization at the expense of charm and affordability. 

But it takes more than crullers to barricade against higher rents, and one iconic doughnut shop can’t do it alone. The apron gets heavy, and, as Taylor tells the Post, 50 years — for one family, anyway — really might be “long enough.” 

Get to John’s while you can, then. Buy a polite quantity of doughnuts. Leave something for those of us driving from downtown. And, in the comments and on Facebook, ponder a question about our now less Space Age space age: What other local businesses do you hope make it to 50 — and then well past it?