ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — After announcing their closure this week, Vortex Doughnuts has come under fire after employees claimed that owners had shuttered the business without paying nine employees for the previous two weeks.
Read our story about the closure here.
The allegations were posted to the Vortex Doughnuts Instagram page, where a nine slide post detailed the timeline of the closure, according to a “long time employee” of the doughnut shop. Vortex Doughnuts is located at 32 Banks Ave. in the South Slope district of downtown Asheville.
In the post, the employee said that the owner of the business, Mollie Collins Skalski, had abruptly fired nine staff members and shut the business down. However, the employee said that Skalski did so without paying the employees for the previous two weeks of work.
In a text message the employee posted in the story, allegedly between Mollie and themself, the owner was quoted saying “Unfortunately, that is one of the reasons why we closed abruptly. We don’t have enough money for payroll or any of the other things that need paid. There is more money going out than coming in. We tried to get a loan to help with that but no luck. I would suggest you apply for emergency unemployment. That’s always why we were offering the equipment to offset that. I know that’s not what you want to hear and again we are truly sorry.”
According to the post, Vortex management was informed that Skalski would be selling the business in February 2026 and offered it to the employees first. The post said that the front-of-house manager was attempting to secure financing for the business and was waiting for paperwork from Skalski before the business was closed.
In 12 hours, the Instagram post has already received over 7,000 likes and nearly 300 comments, many of which expressed shock and concern from the community.
828newsNOW has reached out to Vortex Doughnuts for comment.