Patience Maville starts a batch of donut batter at Muriel's Donuts on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in Lebanon, N.H. Her father, Chris Maville, now runs and owns the local donut shop after her grandmother, Muriel, died in April. Maville is a college student who helps out at the shop when she is home on break and in the summer. (Jennifer Hauck/Valley News)
LEBANON — In the wake of the death of Upper Valley culinary titan, Muriel Maville, owner of Muriel’s Donuts, in early April, her son, Chris Maville, has been keeping the deep-fat fryer running at the no-frills doughnut shop on the corner of West and Granite Streets.
Muriel Maville, who died at age 87 following complications from a respiratory infection, and her late husband, Francis, first opened the store in 1967.
“[I’m] trying to keep it the same way my parents did it,” Chris Maville, 58, said in an interview at Muriel’s on Monday.
With that said, Chris Maville, who bought the business from his brothers after their mother’s death, does plan a few minor updates to the store.
Donuts cook in lard at Muriel’s Donuts on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in Lebanon. (Jennifer Hauck/Valley News)
Plans include putting in new floors and a paneled dropped ceiling in the kitchen in the next month or so to “spiff things up a bit,” and add a second deep-fat fryer so he can speed up production, he said.
He also has been experimenting with a Boston Cream doughnut dipped in chocolate and filled with Bavarian cream to add to Muriel’s menu of plain, sugar and cinnamon sugar doughnuts, crullers and jelly sticks — crullers filled with jam.
The recipe for the store’s doughnuts remains largely the same as the one the elder Mavilles used, but Chris Maville has started adding a little extra flour to the batter to produce a firmer doughnut, just the way he likes it.
To account for the rising cost of ingredients such as lard, he has slightly increased the store’s prices. A half dozen doughnuts now goes for $7, up from $6.
He hopes to hire a part-time employee to handle tasks such as folding boxes and mixing batters. For now, he’s the store’s only full-time employee, but his daughter, Patience Maville, has been helping out while she’s home from Gordon College in Wenham, Mass., where she’s a sophomore studying graphic design.
The pair were in the kitchen together on Monday when Sherry Pressey, of Etna, came in to order a dozen cinnamon sugar doughnuts and a dozen jelly sticks to share with relatives on Christmas, and “a dozen jelly sticks for right now,” as she told Chris Maville at the store’s takeaway counter.
Tim Boutin, of Plainfield, N.H., picks up donuts at Muriel’s Donuts in Lebanon, N.H., on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. Boutin said he has been eating the donuts since he was six. His mother went to school with Muriel Maville, who ran the shop for years until her death at 87 in April. Her son, Chris Maville, now owns the donut hub. (Jennifer Hauck/Valley News)
Pressey likes Muriel’s doughnuts because they marry a crispy outside with a cakey interior, she said.
By the time she stopped by, around noon, Chris Maville had already been at the store since 4:30 a.m., frying doughnuts in preparation for the arrival of hungry customers.
Muriel’s is open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and closed on Sunday.
The store will be closed on Christmas and New Year’s day, and possibly an additional day or two in-between, Chris Maville said.
In spite of the minor tweaks, Muriel’s remains largely unchanged as Chris Maville remains faithful to his parents’ vision for the store. He still shapes the dough on the sturdy wooden workbench his parents used, and the doughnuts still emerge from the fryer crispy and rich each morning.
“I feel like I’m working for them,” Chris Maville said. “I’m kind of like an apostle.”