Donut King has been the official provider of University of Oklahoma donuts for over 20 years, and now that contract has become more important than ever.

A couple of years after Dipti Patel bought Donut King in 1994, they signed a contract with the university to provide all its donuts. Recently, this contract has been the main reason the store is still open today. With construction on Linsey Street making it difficult for customers to physically go to Donut King, it has lost nearly 50 percent of business.

“A lot of our revenue comes from the university,” Patel said. “Plus we have walk-in business, we also deliver to convenient stores and churches. Thank God we have our university contract, otherwise we could not survive. It’s that bad.”

Frank Henry, OU’s food services director, said Donut King provides an average of 20,000 donuts, seven days a week. From Couch cafeteria to Crossroads in the Oklahoma Memorial Union, Donut King’s donuts can be found all over campus, and that is not changing anytime soon.

“Any place that has donuts, it’s their donut,” Henry said. “It’s all about knowing the business. They know where we are, what we do. They know they might get a call tonight from catering that they need five dozen donuts. They do everything they can to get that stuff to us. I don’t think they’ve ever said, ‘No we can’t do that.’”