Donna and Kenny Tibbits, left, and Rebecca and Ron Hall are the new owners of Joe's Bakery, 616 W. Ninth St. They plan to bring back the old ways of the longtime Lawrence institution with original recipes, familiar items and hot glazed doughnuts until 2 a.m. weekdays and 3 a.m. on weekends.

Hot glazed doughnuts. Egg salad sandwiches. Frosted sugar cookies.

Next week, folks once again will be able to snarf down the familiar, original-recipe favorites at Joe’s Bakery – as late (or early) as 3 in the morning.

“The Joe’s run is back,” said Kenny Tibbits, who teamed up with his wife and friends to buy the bakery last week.

All four of the new owners – Kenny and Donna Tibbits and Ron and Rebecca Hall – readily admit that they don’t have many fresh ideas for the venerable bakery at 616 W. Ninth St., just off the edge of downtown and a healthy walk down the hill from Kansas University.

And that’s the point.

The business that Joe Smith opened in 1952, and son Ralph Smith operated as a late-night mecca through the 1990s, had lost some of its charm a few years ago when Ralph Smith closed the place for months at a time and eliminated late-night and early-morning hours, frustrating students and townies alike who had enjoyed making the run for hot glazed doughnuts well after dark and – seemingly – just before sunrise.

“We’re bringing back the late-night,” Ron Hall said. “Everybody wants the doughnuts.”

The new owners know they’ll be working late to make their new operation go, all without quitting their day jobs. The guys both work for the city of Lawrence – Ron Hall drives a recycling truck, and Kenny Tibbits drives a sanitation truck – while Donna Hall runs the drive-through at Bucky’s Drive In and Rebecca Tibbits manages the office at FirstMed.

Other family members also will be on the payroll: Kylee Tibbits, a junior at KU, and Joel Hall, a senior at Free State High School.

“And our 12-year-old said he’d work for free doughnuts and long johns,” Rebecca Hall said of son Kyle, a seventh-grader at West Junior High School.

They’ll also get some consulting advice from none other than Ralph Smith, who had sold the business last year to Brad Rettele, owner of M&M Bakery. Smith is turning over his dad’s original recipes – written in pencil on note cards, yellow legal paper and other parcels – to the new owners, and he has arranged to sell the name as well.

They’re ready to put the information to work.

“We’re going back to the old Joe’s,” Donna Tibbits said.