On its opening weekend in May 2017, the best donut shop in Oregon sold 1,000 donuts in 4 hours. There were no eggs, butter, or milk in any of them. In a city that had somehow reached 2017 without a single all-vegan donut shop, the answer to whether anybody wanted one turned out to be emphatic.
Carly Sitner and Crystal Wegener met working at a natural grocery chain, where they were already making donuts on weekends, and decided to strike out on their own. Sitner had been vegan for years and baking professionally for more than a decade. Wegener graduated from the Oregon Culinary Institute with a degree in baking and pastry management. They spent about six months hunting for a second-generation restaurant space and eventually took over a building that had been a Pizza Hut for thirty years.
Doe is now in the Hollywood District of northeast Portland, just around the corner from the Hollywood Theatre, and the flavor list is as unhinged as anything in this series. If you’re working through the 50 best donut shops, this is the entry where the seasonal special has genuinely been a spaghetti-and-garlic-bread donut.
What to Expect When Visiting Doe Donuts in Portland, Oregon
Order The Golden Child, the shop’s signature and its original claim to being the only chocolate raised donut in Portland. It arrives under ganache, brownie, chocolate shavings, chocolate chips, and edible gold pearls, which is a lot of commitment for a single pastry and exactly the point…