Doughnuts and whiskey might become the new Breakfast of Champions. Exactly what you are a champion of might be an interesting debate. But, yes, proving that anything is possible in downtown Lawrence, we indeed are getting a doughnut shop that also will serve you fine whiskey. Proving that we are intent on giving doctors everywhere a certain salute, it also will serve fried chicken.

I alerted you last week that I had seen a City Hall application for a future downtown business that wanted to sell doughnuts, fried chicken and whiskey, but the permit application didn’t provide much information. (To be clear, it a was permit for a sign. You don’t have to pay for a city permit to fry a chicken. If you did, the south Iowa corridor alone would solve all city budget problems for a generation.)

Well, now I know more. Longtime downtown restaurant owner Nick Wysong is leading a group that will open Wake the Dead: Chicken, Whiskey, Donuts at 918 Massachusetts St., which is the former location of Burger Fi.

Wysong is the co-founder and owner of the popular downtown restaurant Ingredient. Perhaps more importantly for this venture, he’s also the former owner of Harolds Fried Chicken & Donuts. That was the short-lived restaurant that operated out of the Miller Mart gas station on West Sixth Street.

Wysong said the concept of fried chicken served with a doughnut developed a bit of a cult following during the year that Harolds was open. Wysong said he always wanted to continue with the idea, but was looking to tweak both the concept and location a bit.

Wysong has partnered with Lawrence businessman Ryan Robinson, who brings a lot of marketing experience to the table as a promoter of Color Run races across the country. Josh Kurzdan, who was part of the Lawrence Burger Fi restaurant, also is part of the group, Wysong said.

What won’t change with the business is the chicken recipe. It will continue to be “honest, Southern-style fried chicken.” It will be fried in the old-fashioned manner and will come with a choice of about a dozen sauces. Traditional sides such as potatoes and gravy or macaroni and cheese will be on the menu.

At Harolds, the doughnuts were a bit of a side dish. But that won’t be the case at Wake the Dead. Wysong said the restaurant will be a fully functioning doughnut shop. People will be able to come in of a morning and get a few dozen doughnuts to take to the office. If the thought of going to the office requires a shot of bourbon, Wake the Dead also will serve you that. The shop will have a large selection of “top shelf whiskeys,” Wysong said. It also, obviously, will have evening hours. It isn’t betting on whiskey for breakfast becoming a hugely popular trend. (It is trend-disadvantaged because people who partake in it don’t remember it well enough to tweet about it.)

As for the doughnuts, Wysong said he expects to have a stable of about 60 recipes, although he plans to start out by having about a dozen varieties available daily.

“We’re going to do this right and do it well,” Wysong said. “But the doughnut element is going to be huge. We’re super stoked about that.”

But perhaps what will blow your mind is that the fried chicken and the doughnuts truly will come together. (See, there is hope for a divided America.) Harolds served a sandwich called the Grilled Glazer. It was fried chicken covered in cheese sauce, a secret sauce, sandwiched between two maple-glazed doughnuts. Are you understanding this? The doughnuts served as the bread for the sandwich. I always assumed Harolds closed after a year in business because it was miffed that it had not yet won a Nobel Prize for this innovation.

Well, the Grilled Glazer will be on the menu of Wake the Dead. Wysong also said the menu will include a line of other sandwiches, some of which also will use doughnuts in place of bread. He didn’t give me details on what those will look like. (Or perhaps he did, but I was too busy renting a semi to carry my next order of cholesterol medicine.)

Remodeling work is already underway at the site. Wysong hopes to have the restaurant open in late January.

• Wake the Dead, however, isn’t the only venture Wysong is working on. Wysong also is part of a group that has purchased the Jackpot Music Hall and Saloon at 943 Massachusetts St.

You may have noticed that Jackpot was closed for a couple of weeks in November. That’s when Wysong’s group purchased the business. The group did a bit of remodeling on the interior and installed new exterior signage.

Wysong said Jackpot still will function as a bar and music venue. Wysong called himself a “good music fanatic,” and he said the venue will host a variety of genres including rock, bluegrass, funk, hip hop, country and others.

The business is next door to Wysong’s Ingredient restaurant and his Five Bar and Tables establishment that has been hosting live music, particularly jazz, for awhile now. Five Bar and Tables also has been host to regular pingpong gatherings. Those pingpong tables are moving to Jackpot, and he said the bar soon will announce a weekly special involving pingpong and cheap beer.

“I’ve always had a big crush on Jackpot,” Wysong said of the decision to buy the establishment. “We feel like we have had a lot of good luck promoting jazz at (Five Bar and Tables.) Now we have a bigger stage and venue to promote music.”