Friday, April 30, 2010

Independent Doughnut Shops Charm Chicagoans

I think we needs some good news here about a local business. The only time I had this was during the day of the re-opening of 75th Street in October of last year:
The busy morning traffic at Dat Donuts has subsided. Anne has just finished rearranging the freshly baked doughnuts and is cleaning the grill when two middle-aged women walk in, immediately heading for the doughnut case.

The customers are greeted with a smile and pleasant “How are you?” from Anne. After a few minutes of decision making, one customer asks for a single chocolate glazed. She asks Anne to heat it in the microwave.

“I bet they’ll be just heaven-heated,” the customer said. Anne says she’s not supposed to, but the customer pleads — “Just 10 seconds.” Anne looks at the customer, exhales a breath and gives in. The customer pays 98 cents and walks out with a smile.

“To produce a good quality, fresh doughnut, cut by hand is something really hard to find,” said Darryl Townson, owner and operator of Dat Donuts.

Dat Donuts, 8251 S. Cottage Grove Ave., has been open in the Chatham neighborhood for 16 years. Success led Townson to open a second location, 1979 W. 111th St., in the Beverly neighborhood eight months ago.
They are located in the building where Leon's Ribs used to be. Leon's was open sometime last year, but I drove by earlier this month and found the location where Leon's was to be vacant. At least a thriving business is in that building.

Anyone else want to opine on these donuts, feel free!

1 comment:

  1. Well we have to give Leon's some credit for working with Dat Donut. They originally brought them to Chatham after they lost their lease at the old 63rd Halsted Street "L" location. Also, they had a location in Roseland some years ago.

    It appears that they might be taking over some of the Leon locations ( all are now closed) and opening up some type of eatery.

    ReplyDelete

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