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A Ukrainian refugee family soft launched their second business in Spokane this past month, celebrating doughnut shop Sweet Tooth’s official opening Oct. 1 with bunches of balloons out front.

Marking the South Hill with its turquoise and white building – which used to house Brain Freeze Ice Cream – Sweet Tooth offers customers a variety of Ukrainian and French pastries, all crafted same day.

Igor Yorke, who owns the business with his wife of 25 years Iryna, has studied pastrymaking extensively in France – flying over every couple of months for baking classes. Their doughnuts are set apart from the average shop by the brioche dough, natural glaze and a quality frying oil.

“I learn all the time, everywhere, and I try to find the best what is this,” Yorke said. “I don’t want to say someone is not good, but you can smell on my box when is the doughnuts. And smell any box, any doughnut shop and then compare.”

The husband and wife duo also own Cedar Coffee on Monroe, which has been a morning destination for locals since 2017.

“I roast coffee because I am a coffee man,” Yorke said. “You ask, ‘Who are you?’ I’m a coffee man, and after some time I decided to open a small bakery.”

Despite having a mechanical engineering degree, Yorke said he has owned businesses all his life. In Donetsk, Ukraine, he owned a coffee shop before Russia invaded the area in 2014.

“In this time, a lot of bomb everywhere. I have house – my house was bombed. If you have nothing, what should you do?” Yorke said with a hearty laugh.

He made it to Spokane in September 2014, the last of his relatives to flee their home country.

“My parents landed in America in 2000,” Yorke said. “And after war started, when war started I decided to be with my family.”

Both Cedar Coffee and Sweet Tooth were able to come to fruition in part due to assistance from Spokane Neighborhood Action Partners, which provided a loan and coaching for the businesses.

Though Sweet Tooth has welcomed customers for a few weeks, Yorke said Oct. 1 was its official opening.

“I am not hurrying,” he said. “I need to figure out how is work this machine, how is the textile dough … just setting up.”

Yorke has gotten a handle of it now, though, with doughnuts and traditional Ukrainian babka prepped by employees, himself and his 17-year-old son Emil each morning.

“(Emil) was very excited to be working with them,” employee Olya Zuyev said. “He wakes up at 3 a.m. super excited to work, makes his older brother drive him here and he creates the dough. Igor taught him everything he knows.”

Zuyev began working at Cedar Coffee around five years ago, saying the “vibe is very friendly, very homey.” She found out after getting the job that her husband was related to Yorke. When she asked Yorke what her official title was, he responded, “she is my relative, and she is boss here.”

“Can’t leave, don’t want to leave,” she said. “The family is great – good to work with, very friendly – and I really do like that they focus on having high quality ingredients. Same with the coffee, he really focuses on having it perfect.”

Iryna Yorke is a perfectionist when it comes to making, Zuyev said. If she makes a mistake with one ingredient, she will throw out the entire batch.

“Her cakes are thin, but they’re not too thin. They’re sweet, but not too sweet. She mellows it out and makes it so good,” Zuyev said. “Americans or people that haven’t tried Eastern European cakes – you’ve got to try it.”

Yorke said he wants to bring a wider variety of baked goods to the business in time, including stuffed croissants. He thinks that his son Emil, after finishing school, will probably take over the business.

“I would say it’s family business,” Yorke said.

Cannon Barnett's work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.

Starbucks is closing three of its 29 locations in Spokane and its popular Ritzville coffee shop just off Interstate 90.

The local closures and many more across Washington come as company CEO Brian Niccol embarks on a $1 billion restructuring plan.

The closures began last week and will affect 369 Washington employees, according to a notice filed with Washington’s Employment Security Department. The three Spokane coffeehouses now closed include those at 2703 N. Division St., 1821 N. Hamilton St. and 9335 N. Newport Hwy. The coffee shops no longer appear on the Starbucks website or Google Maps.

Starbucks also is eliminating 900 non-retail partner roles – potentially affecting people who work in human resource, marketing, IT and finance at Starbucks. Those employees were let go on Friday.

The Ritzville location has been a spot that folks on road trips often stopped at to refill on gas and caffeine. The small town’s population is around 1,700.

“I know these decisions impact our partners and their families, and we did not make them lightly,” Niccol said. “I believe these steps are necessary to build a better, stronger, and more resilient Starbucks.”

All of the closures combined will result in a 1% decline from Starbucks coffeehouses in North America, Niccol said in a letter released on Sept. 25. Niccol noted that Starbucks needs to build “better, stronger and more resilient” coffeehouses, with the goal of delivering great atmospheres and warm spaces.

“We identified coffeehouses where we’re unable to create the physical environment our customers and partners expect, or where we don’t see a path to financial performance, and these locations will be closed,” Niccol said.

In the next year, Niccol says 1,000 Starbucks locations will be updated.

The only unionized Starbucks in Spokane is the Shadle Center Starbucks located at 2401 W. Wellesley Ave. Employees at this store voted to join Starbucks Workers United in June 2023.

Severance packages may be given to Starbucks employees who cannot be transferred to another location. Some employees may receive packages that will see them through to December.

The company will end 2025’s fiscal year with 18,300 Starbucks locations. Starbucks is not sharing a list of its closed locations.

Picketers march in front of Central Pre-Mix in Spokane Valley on Friday, August 15, 2025. The labor strike has indefinitely halted three construction projects in Eastern Washington, including the North Spokane Corridor. (Kathy Plonka/The Spokesman-Revie)

A labor strike continues to put numerous construction projects in Spokane on hold .

Members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302 picketing outside of Shamrock Paving Company in Airway Heights on Friday declined to comment on why they were striking, but referred instead to Carl Cope, their field representative for Eastern Washington. Cope also declined to comment.

Similarly, Shamrock Paving Company wouldn’t comment.

Kirstin Davis , the communications manager for the City of Spokane Public Works, said grind and overlay street maintenance on North Foothills Drive, between Hamilton Street and Hogan Street, is on hold until material becomes available. In addition , Davis said four construction projects slated for the 2025 season that haven’t started may have to be delayed until the 2026 season. These projects are Boone Avenue, between Monroe Street and Washington Street; Napa Street, between Trent Avenue and Mission Avenue; Cozza Drive, between Standard Street and Nevada Street; and Qualchan Drive between Cheney-Spokane Road and U.S. Highway 195.

Other projects are disrupted because of asphalt vendor issues. The disrupted projects include Maple and Ash Street between Fifth and Bridge; Lincoln Street between Summit Parkway and Sinto Avenue; Maxwell Avenue between Maple and Ash, and Pettit Drive. Sprague Avenue, Alki Avenue, and Broadway Avenue between Freya Street and Havana Street is in the middle of a contracted grind and overlay project, but was forced to go on pause because of the strike. In addition to all this, a water main project in Northwest Spokane near Francis and Assembly is also on hold.

This strike is between contractors and their workers, but the reason and whether any negotiations are underway are unclear. Because the city gets most of its asphalt using workers in the union, this strike strains various projects. Davis worries that even if the strike is resolved in a timely manner, there’s a backlog of private businesses waiting for asphalt that will be competing with the city of Spokane for the materials they need.

Ryan Overton , the public information officer for the Washington State Department of Transportation, said there are three state projects halted over the strike. The North Spokane Corridor, also known as the Spokane River Crossing Project, along with two paving projects on U.S. 195 near Pullman and U.S. Highway 395 from Hafer Road up to Chewelah are on hold until an agreement between the contractors and their employees is reached.