For Valentine’s Day this year, the owner of Dora’s Donuts will be showing up in her sprinkle headband and donut shirt to deliver boxes of freshly baked donuts, Dough Notes, and hope.
The Dough Notes are small edible messages. Signature phrases include Do Not Worry or Good Things Are Coming Your Way, but for Valentine’s Day, owner Heather Dora Piotter said she’ll be creating custom notes and conversation heart messages, too.
“I’m trying to add a little positivity. That stems back to my late husband,” owner Heather Dora Piotter said. “He was really happy go lucky. He could make friends with a brick wall. So, when he passed I was like, ‘You don’t get to take all of that with you.’ People are already happy to get hot fresh donuts and so to add a little extra positivity and something a little funny just felt like part of us.”
Piotter’s husband was named Jeffery, but he went by “JJ.”
Dreams
Most of Piotter’s life she has worked in the food business, including as a chef at Google. She loved making donuts at another Milan staple, Wasem Fruit Farm, so much she decided she wanted to start her own donut business.
“[JJ] was just like I know you can do it,” she recalls, adding, “We met through mutual friends just back in 2013 and just knew we were each other’s person. He was whole heartedly behind all of the donut things.”
Heartbreak
Piotter started Dora’s Donuts in February of 2023 at her then-home in Milan under cottage law. Her husband was killed by a drunk driver just 10 days later.
“I was like, ‘Whoa, this is done.’ I barely knew which way is up. So, I was like, ‘This is not an option to continue.’”
However, Piotter said the Milan community where she had been testing her business ideas online got behind her.
“Most of the Milan community was like, ‘Absolutely not. We will be here. We’re still here for you and for the donuts no matter how long it takes.’ It was really special.”
That promise drew Piotter forward.
Starting Again
On Oct. 26, 2025, she had a ribbon cutting at Farm & Flea, Milan’s farmer’s market, through the Milan Area Chamber where she met Jes Meingasner, executive director of Milan’s Downtown Development Authority. Meingasner said she loved the donuts and invited Piotter to Moonlight Madness in December 2025, which she attended along with two other food trucks.
“She did wonderful and the community came out in droves for her,” Meingasner said.
Pink Shamrocks Owner Rita Gordon met Piotter at Moonlight Madness, and invited her to have a popup in her store when the nearby bakery was closed for an early January break.
“[Life is Sweet] is such a big draw and we love having them as part of our business community,” Gordon said. “We notice a change of traffic downtown when they’re closed. I was trying to think of something we could use to fill in that gap.”
“I went in with 50 dozen donuts and in less than 50 minutes they were gone,” Piotter said. “It was an unexpected blessing for sure. About one-third were pre-orders.”
“I found her to just be so sweet, so kind, so thankful,” said Gordon, who with an MBA and PhD in higher education university administration has ample business experience of her own. “She’s the kind of person who if I can support her with a popup that’s what I want to do—a small, women-owned businesses. I’m one and I want to support my sisters.”
Spreading love
Piotter will deliver donuts to locations within 20 miles of Britton each Saturday in February. Each month her donuts have a different theme. In February it’s “Not Your Average Box of Chocolates,” featuring double chocolate, white chocolate, cherry cordial, strawberry crème, salted caramel and peanut butter glazed chocolate donuts.
She starts cooking at 4 a.m. and then spends six hours delivering fresh donuts to Milan, Saline, Dundee, Adrian, and some smaller areas that can’t get delivery of anything else.
“I just delivered to an older couple. A granddaughter reached out to me and said, ‘They are home all the time. I would love to surprise them.’”
Another customer is a grandmother in Arizona for winter, who sends surprises to her grandchildren from afar.
Right now Piotter’s experimenting with her business model.
“I’m just kind of going with the flow of things,” she said. “With both of my kids being younger being present with them is my highest priority, which is why it’s a food truck.”
Giving Hope
There have also been surprises along the way.
“An unexpected by product of all of this – as I share about my husband and the flavors he loves—is giving other people the space and courage to come to me and share their own stories of love and loss and resilience. I think that has been the most fulfilling part of this. I have people come to me and say I lost my nephew to a drunk driver. You give me hope. Hope is the most important thing you can have.”
For updates on delivery options, follow Dora’s Donuts on Facebook. Those outside her delivery area can try her donuts at her pop-up events. She was just accepted to be a vendor at Washtenaw County Fairgrounds on March 28 and 29 at the Fiber Expo, a place to purchase wool, alpaca, linen, cotton and more, from plant or animal to the finished product.
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