Are designer donuts the new cupcake? I certainly hope so.
I finally sat down to a highly anticipated chat with Kirsten of
Glazed Donuts Catering. You may not have heard of Glazed, but if you've ever bought a gourmet donut from Swim Cafe, Bite Cafe, Green Grocer, or New Wave Coffee, you already know how unique and addictive her product is. I asked Kirsten how she became the Chicago flagship for this low-brow high-satisfaction food.
What was your inspiration?Donuts are starting to show up in fancy restaurant menus. It's starting to happen on the coasts and there's such a huge market for it.
On the West Coast you've got Ryan at
Mighty Os who I think is the best and his donuts are are all vegan and all organic. I sort of went on a donut pilgrimage last summer because I was meeting my mom for a road trip and I was like, "Do you mind if we sort of go to these donut places?" So we went to Mighty Os and I got to hang out and see how they do their stuff and talk about things and it was a really cool project. His donuts are fantastic.
I also went to
Top Pot which is doing this but on a larger scale. They are kind of a coffee house that does donuts and they have multiple locations in Seattle, these are booth in Seattle. They've gotten a lot bigger and more corporate so now they don't make all the donuts on site at the shop they have one place make them and then distribute them.
Probably one of the best known is
Voodoo Donuts. They're doing really cool stuff. It's not organic or any thing; they have some vegan donuts. Their flavors are crazy, like I had a donut that was a regular donut with a vanilla frosting but they rolled it in tang powder and put marshmallows in the center. They have a bacon-maple donut that's a maple donut with a piece of bacon on top.
They have a lot of dirty, risque donuts too that look like peoples anatomy, and they have a giant donut, its all kitschy fun stuff. They just opened a second location and they have lines out the door. They started out being an all-night donut shop from 10 pm to 8 o'clock in the morning. It's this nasty little hole, I was expecting to go there and be like, "Wow, Voodoo!", because everybody talks about Voodoo and how fantastic it is, and then I went there and realized it was basically two twenty-something guys who started a donut shop. I mean, their donuts are great, but there's no money put into their place; everyone's doing a shoestring budget.
That's one thing I learned going around, no one's making a ton of money on this, everybody's doing it cause they really like it. They're getting a reputation, and it's really cool, but everybody had to do it on the cheap. Nobody got a bunch of investors, nobody has money, nobody is making a lot of money, they're doing it cause they like it.
Kirsten does her research and plans ahead. She took business classes before starting out, and has a solid philosophy of using locally-sourced, sustainable ingredients. She envisions donuts as the first stage in a model for responsible, high quality food in urban communities.
I asked if people would buy donuts just because they are a sustainable product.Food is amazing in that you get to make a huge difference. Everybody has decisions every day...about what they're going to put in their mouth, and they're fun decisions! It's not like, "Save the world eat this drink mix three times a day, it's disgusting stuff that's like powder, you could save the earth if you just do this." We're saying "Eat amazing things and make a difference."
Who do you envision as your market?Let me ask you a question? Do you like donuts? Ask a kid, or maybe as a young adult, do you have a memory of a donut at some point in your life, that when you think about donuts, sticks with you?
The most memorable doughnut memory I have is my father used to make donuts at home. He'd have the dough and the little cutter with the hole in the middle and the big kettle of oil, and have everything frying in there. We'd put them in a paper bag with sugar and cinnamon and shake it up. They weren't even the best donuts I've ever had, but there's something about them...Like a sense memory? You can smell it, and you can picture him doing it, and you remember the taste of it and there's something kind of magical about that, right?
That memory is a memory you're going to have your whole life. Well its weird, the more people I talk to, the more I realize that every single person has some doughnut memory like that, it's really weird.
Donuts in some form are in every culture around the world. There are Japanese donuts, Indian, French, Italian, Spanish donuts, everyone's got a donut. Every person I talk to has some amazing sense memory that cuts to the core of them, with donuts.
When I was a kid, my parents were really poor. So when I was really little, like five, maybe four, they had a paper route to make extra money. They would get up every Sunday in the middle of the night and they would go do their paper route and...but they would take me with them because I was so little.
I remember stupid things, like I had a torn up dirty-ass little bunny, and I would make the effort that night to hold the bunny as tight as possible so when they would carry me out to the car, still asleep, I would wake up with my bunny.
Every Sunday I would wake up as they were finishing the paper route and the sun would be rising in California, and it would be the most beautiful sunrise in the whole world. We would stop and get gas, and they would always buy me the little Gem chocolate donuts. That was the best thing in the whole world, to wake up in the car with my parents, with the sun rising, and I'd have my little chocolate donuts.
Every single person I know has a memory like that with donuts, and...when you get older, it just doesn't measure up...but my goal is to make sure it gets as close as possible.
Thanks, Kirsten!
These are just a few excerpts from a hour-long interview. It's very exciting to hear Kirsten talk about her business plan, and even more so the ethics behind her product. However, you're most likely interested in where to find the inspired donuts.
Glazed distributes to
Swim Cafe,
Bite Cafe,
Green Grocer, and
New Wave Coffee, Friday through Sunday. They also accept personal orders:
glazedchicago at gmail.com.
