Donuts

Donuts, more traditionally spelled doughnuts¹, are arguably the most unhealthy treat on the planet. The Bay Area (which some people think includes Davis) is known for having lots of independent donut shops, but Davis only has two: Pink Dozen and Fluffy Donuts.

The first Friday of June is National Doughnut Day. You might want to keep an eye out for specials on that day.

Freshly made donuts can be purchased at:

• The Coffee House (347 Memorial Union ), but they disappear quickly.
• Fast and Easy Mart (140 B St. , between 1st and 2nd). According to the clerk, "they are delivered by some guy from Sacramento."
  • The raspberry jelly donuts have more dough than jelly. Although the jelly is overly viscous and looks artificial, the donut quality is fair, especially given they are sold in a convenience store.
  • The chocolate glazed donuts are pretty generic, and sometimes are raw in the middle.
• Fluffy Donuts (757-A2 Russell Blvd , in the University Mall)
  • The raspberry jelly donuts consistently have a generous amount of jelly. They are available early in the day, but tend to run out more quickly than bearclaws and the like.
  • The filling of the bavarian cream donut has the same type of slight chemical taste found in instant pudding mixes.
• Konditorei (2710 5th Street (Near the Davis Police Department))
  • They sell two kinds of filled doughnuts - a vanilla custard filled doughnut, and an apricot jam filled doughnut. They are so good that they make me want to cry.
• Lee's Deli
  • They sell "cronuts," a cross between a croissant and a donut.
• Nugget Market at Mace Boulevard sells a small selection of doughnuts in the cabinet with their bagels.
• Pink Dozen (1300 East Covell Boulevard in Oak Tree Plaza)
  • The oddest raspberry jelly donuts in Davis— a solid donut is sliced in half and spread with jelly. Donut engineers typically avoid such "sandwich" designs as they promote leakage of the 360-degree kind. But they are tasty nonetheless, as are their other varieties.
• Safeway (1431 West Covell Boulevard in The Marketplace and 2121 Cowell Blvd. in Oakshade Town Center)
  • The raspberry jelly donuts are very similar to those sold in the Fast and Easy Mart, and are suspected to be delivered by the same guy in Sacramento.
• Save Mart (1900 Anderson Rd. , in the Anderson Plaza) sells their own brand of donuts.
• The Silo (southwest part of the campus ) had donuts, near the former Brenan's Starbucks cashiers. (Not sure if still so)
• A few Gas Stations throughout Davis have Krispy Kreme doughnuts, but beware— they sometimes forget to fill the jelly ones! They also often have boxes of chocolate or powder sugar coated lumps of "donuts": dense, compressed and prone to bouts of crying. Some people like them, however. Some people also really like the early heavy metal period of Michael Bolton.
• The nearest Krispy Kreme stores are located in Vacaville, West Sacramento and Concord. The Concord store opened up in April 2012 after being closed for several years. At the Roseville location, the hot light hours are 5:30-10 AM and 5-10 PM(or closing). This is the time when the donuts are freshly made. The newest nearby Krispy Kreme opened in Vacaville around April 2014. The West Sacramento store opened right next to the Ikea in West Sacramento in July 2013.
• UC Davis Graduate Students consume many donuts at Coffee-Bagel-Donut Day, as well as other non-donut donut shaped objects.

Dunkin' Donuts

A most rare and delicious import. Chibi brought these over to share with friends all the way from the Dunkin' Donuts in the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Dunkin' Donuts announced in 2014 plans to open up over 200 shops in California. As of 2014, Dunkin' Donuts has signed agreements to open 150 restaurants in California.link Forty-six of those restaurants will be in the Sacramento area including at least one in the city of Davis. For the moment, Roseville is the closest location. That location opened in October 2015. Walnut Creek (1 hour away) is the next closest shop to Davis. It opened June 22, 2016. Modesto was the previous closest store. Modesto and Santa Monica opened up around the beginning of September 2014.

People have commented that the Roseville location has run out of donuts at times due the fact that the donuts are not made at the Roseville location. It is presumed that the donuts are made in Modesto and delivered to Roseville. There have been comments that the donuts taste stale and are not very fresh.

Dunkin' Donuts has a higher density out east than Starbucks™ does here (and is also the number one donut chain). In some urban areas, you can find several on each block. Despite this, they don't have the "take over the world™" vibe that Starbucks™ has, possibly because they give franchisers quite a bit of leeway in how they run their stores, including some that are full diners. Due to their ubiquity and friendliness, they have quite a large number of diehard fans. (So does Tim Horton in Canada and the extreme northern states). Unfortunately, there are no Dunkin' Donuts in the area, and so people coming back from the east coast or midwest often bring back donuts or coffee for locals. Different donuts are made from different types of dough and cooked for different lengths of time, so each variety is very distinct, some being yeasty, some being cakey, some being crumbly, others being eggy. Dunkin' Donuts also makes bagels, croissants and, at most stores, soup and sandwiches. They are also commonly open 24 hours.

Previously before September 2014, the closest full size Dunkin' Donuts restaurant was in Phoenix, AZ, approximately 800 miles away from Davis. Actually, there were two in Portland, OR (though they were not listed on the official website), which is only 570 miles from Davis. However, those were all closed and there was an article in a Portland area paper about the closures. The store is now called Sesame Donuts and still retains a vague look of Dunkin' Donuts decor. One Dunkin' Donuts is located at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in Oceanside, California. It is not open to the public. However, a new Dunkin' Donuts opened in late 2013 in Barstow, California which is about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. There was one Dunkin' in Sacramento and one in LA that were test locations (they got redecorated and re-laid out every month or so). The plan was to open a light sprinkling of 800 stores throughout California to get the ball rolling. There was a section on the website about the new California stores coming soon. Unfortunately, the man financing the venture had a heart attack and the project was put on hold and eventually the locations closed. JabberWokky has repeatedly offered to road trip to Dunkin' Donuts. For those who think Starbucks has a high density, many east coast cities have a much higher density of Dunkin' Donuts than Starbucks does anywhere. Southern Ontario has a higher density of Tim Horton's than any other store in any other location I've encountered. Note that Togos and Baskin-Robbins were both owned by the same company until 2007, so if a Togo's location offered coffee (none of the Davis locations do), it might have been Dunkin' Donuts coffee. However, since Togo's locations are franchises, each store owner is responsible for finding their own brand of coffee to use in their stores. This may include non-Dunkin' coffee if it is cheaper.

Old databases list the closest Dunkin Donuts as being in San Jose, at 3605 Union Ave. They used to be a Dunkin Donuts, but several years ago lost their franchise and became a Sunny Donuts. JabberWokky spent a night very happy, followed by bitter disappointment when he found out the truth.

• According to The Boston Herald (7/21/2002), "Dunkin' expanded in California in the 1980s, with about 15 stores around the state at one time. But it never got the critical mass it hoped for and bailed out a few years ago." I remember Dunkin Donuts growing up, and their coffee is quite good and their donuts tended to be uneven in quality. But apparently the second run at the California market they envisioned in 2k2 never materialized (as far as I know). -jr

• There's a Dunkin' Donuts in San Jose... did I miss something?
  • Yes, it is not longer a Dunkin Donuts, and has not been for a few years. It's still listed in some phone books and online as a Dunkin Donuts, but you can call them to verify - they aren't. They are now "Sunny Donuts". —JabberWokky
  • What he said. Sunny donuts is only like a few minutes from my home in San Jose. - TF
• When I was a kid, there was a Dunkin Donuts in Grass Valley, a mere 75 miles away from Davis. I had no idea they were such a huge company. I always thought they were a little shady. Maybe it was the orange plastic chairs and dark brown walls, haha. — ss
• It's time to make the donuts! —DavidGrundler
• These can be purchased and traveled to you by friends needing a ride from the airport after breaks. ~DavePoole
• Dunkin' Donuts has gone down in quality over the years. They no longer make their donuts in most of their stores. Donuts are only made in a few locations and then they are delivered to the rest of the stores in the area. This results in donuts that are often stale. The coffee at Dunkin' is also kind of weak and watered down. They have a large variety of donuts, but the coffee isn't exactly gourmet. If you need your Dunkin' Donuts coffee fix, you can find bags of Dunkin' Donuts coffee on the shelves of most supermarkets. —MaxLucas

Footnotes

1. "Doughnut" is the more traditional spelling, and still dominates outside the US.