EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a collaboration between digital journalist Susan Carpenter and multimedia journalist Jo Kwon. To watch the video report that accompanies this story, click the arrow above.

WILMINGTON, Calif. — Flour, yeast, and sugar are key ingredients in the raised and glazed bestsellers at Randy’s Donuts. But the 25-foot version that towers above the chain’s newest location in Costa Mesa is concocted from a less delectable mix of aluminum, stucco, and PVC.

That doesn’t make it any less alluring.

What You Need To Know

  • Randy's Donuts in Costa Mesa is one of a handful of locations with a giant rooftop donut

  • The 25-foot donut towers above Harbor Blvd.

  • The San Pedro Electric Sign co. makes the rooftop donuts for Randy's Donuts

  • Unlike the edible versions, the rooftop donuts are made from aluminum, stucco, and PVC

“People come to check out the donut but stay for the food,” said Randy’s Donuts owner Mark Kelegian. 

Over the past six years, he’s been expanding the franchise throughout the southland, using eye-catching oversized confections to lure customers to its ingestible, ooey-gooey wares. In 2019, it was a 26-footer on top of a new Randy’s in Downey. Last year, a comparatively petite two-footer outside a new location in Pasadena. Later in 2021, there will be even more steroidal Randy’s Donuts signage in Las Vegas, Bakersfield, and Santa Monica. 

All of them are made by the San Pedro Electric Sign Co. in Wilmington.

“When people typically think of signs, they think of something that’s used on a storefront or for a shopping center, but this is iconic,” said San Pedro Electric Sign Co. owner Gus Navarro, Jr. “Iron Man sat on one of these,” he said, referring to the scene in Iron Man 2 where Robert Downey Jr. lounged inside the donut on top of Randy's iconic Inglewood location.

Finding the building plans for that original rooftop donut “was a little difficult, so we just brainstormed on how we can make this,” said Navarro, whose shop typically makes large-scale signs for more mundane businesses like car washes and shopping centers. Consulting with engineers and other sign makers, he and his team decided to emulate airplane manufacturing, building the donuts from ribs of metal framing covered in sheets of aluminum.

Once the circular shape is formed, it’s outfitted with chunks of PVC to emulate the bumps of a type of donut known as an old-fashioned, then stuccoed and painted golden brown.

Unlike an edible donut that is made by a single person and is light enough to carry by the dozen, the rooftop version is made with six guys working simultaneously to bend and weld it into shape. And when it’s done, it tips the scales at a hefty 5,500 pounds. 

That’s still a lot lighter than the one in Inglewood that was built in the 1950s. Constructed from concrete and steel and weighing upwards of 15,000 pounds, it remains to this day, leaving an impression that’s as indelible as it is immovable.

“I went to Loyola High School, and we used to play our football games at Centinela Field in Inglewood. I remember the bus rides going right past that giant donut,” said Kelegian, who bought Randy’s Donuts in 2015 and has been expanding the franchise ever since. His latest, in Costa Mesa, opens Tuesday.