They still do. Dupont/Spadina, Harbord/Bathurst, Spadina/College for sure. Not sure how many others
Depends on the donut
A dozen glazed donuts starts at maybe $4 around where I live at the grocery stores. The more specialty donuts at donut stores are more like $1-2 each.
Not super cheap, but glazed donuts are fairly cheap I’d say.
You could get a dozen glazed from Krispy Kreme for less than $10.00 here in Little Rock before they shut down. That’s rather inexpensive to me.
To each their own. I get doughnuts from a very good, very popular, family owned bakery from time to time. They’re good, so is DD. Maybe it’s just that the difference between DD/local bakery isn’t nearly as big as the difference between mass produced grocery store/gas station donuts that cost 50¢ and DD.
Maybe the price has gone up since, but the last time I was buying donuts, splurging meant going to the independent donut shop that charged $7.50 a dozen. And they were definitely better than Krispy Kreme.
I completely agree with Chef Gaffigan. I grab coffee and bakery on my way to work. If I buy a pastry at the coffee joint, it can be 3 or 4 bucks. So I usually get a cookie, but even that’s $2.50 (they’re good cookies).
BUT, if I make a second stop at the local donut shop that’s baking their own, I get a fresh, warm donut for a buck (sometimes a blueberry cake donut with melty maple glaze…). That’s a lot of happiness for pocket change.
You know what those donuts taste like? Remember the first time you stopped by a Krispy Kreme with the Hot Now light flashing, and got a glazed donut right off the conveyor belt? Mmmm… well, that’s worth what an hour of therapy would cost.
And so much cheaper than any gourmet bakery.
Donuts are cheap. If it’s worth a buck it’s no longer a donut, it’s a pastry.
I have not heard the routine for a while, but heard it often when I still had satellite radio. As I remember it, the crux of the matter was that a single donut was reasonably priced but if you bought a dozen the discount was enormous.
At one time that was very true, a dozen donuts was between two and three times the cost of a single donut which is between a four, or six to one discount. I have not had occasion to buy donuts since the kid got out of school and we stopped having meetings with the faculty. Back then, the donuts were very reasonably priced, but a BOX OF JOE, which was about 12 cups of coffee was outrageously expensive from my point of view.
Again, I think the point of the bit is that Dunkin wanted to sell only by the dozen. Similar to movie theaters that sell a ‘small’ popcorn for $3.89 in a 32 oz. drink cup – or a giant tub of popcorn in an oversized chicken bucket for $4.25. The small and medium sizes only existed to up-sell the customer (I have heard they had to dust smaller sized containers because they never sold). I believe if you try to buy a single donut at Dunkin Donuts it will cost significantly more than 1/12th of the price of a dozen.
I was at a motel in Anaheim, California once for a work related trip. My first night there the manager saw me out by the pool, so he came outside and shared what I was smoking.
The next morning I stopped in the office for coffee and a donut, included in the room price. The donuts were as hard as a rock. The manager confided in me that his boss gave him $X a week for breakfasts, so he’d found free (old) donuts and the cheapest coffee grounds money could buy.
People consumed the coffee/donuts without complaining, it was unbelievable!
When I was a kid in the Seventies, I was often sent to buy Donuts at the shop a few blocks away. It was always $2.25 a dozen. I’ve since always considered “Dollars to donuts” to mean roughly 1 to 5 odds.
A lot of that is that the markup on a single item is so enormous that the store can give you a huge discount for buying a larger quantity and still be making plenty. If I have a widget that costs 10 cents and I sell it for a dollar, I made 90 cents. But if I can get you to buy 10 of them for $6.00, I make 500% more and you paid 50% less. It’s a win for both of us, except for the fact that I artificially inflated the price of the single widget to convince you to buy the 10 pack, so it’s more like a win-win where both wins are mine.
Also, with things like soda and coffee, and I’m going to assume popcorn, often times the product is so cheap, that the container it’s handed to you in is a big part of their costs, sometimes even more expensive than the product… That’s why refills are free, but they just hand you the one cup.
Good point. When I was teaching, I’d stop at a Kwik Trip and pick up a dozen or two of their Old Fashioned donuts. Dirt cheap, but the sugar jumpstart was much appreciated for an 8 am class.
They made good motivators, too: “And remember, anyone who’s got their project done by 8am tomorrow gets carbs!” … and of course if you were late to class, no donut for you!
Oh, how the students loved to make “Mmmm…” noises and loudly smack their lips in front of their late compatriots.
Just BTW, but several posters have mentioned Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s now just named Dunkin’, and it’s no longer a donut shop. It’s a coffee shop that also serves pastries and sandwiches. It’s positioned as a sort of Starbucks Lite. It hasn’t been a cheap donut shop chain in years.
Just checked: the local medium-fancy donut shop charges $1.65 per donut. For a similarly decked-out donut, Krispy Kreme charges $1.79. A plain glazed is $1.19, or $10 a dozen.
When Tim Hortons, Canada’s so-called shrine, stopped making donuts in house and started shipping them factory frozen to stores - Canadians were outraged. Dozens of people, most of them Ron Joyce, loudly protested. Now the walnut logs would all be the same size.
They’ve tried to position themselves as a foodie place for years. Now, all they need is good food.
Yes, because these are items with a shelf life of hours, not days. Any that aren’t sold within a very short time get tossed, so there’s no reason not to push large quantities.
In my experience, there’s a huge regional difference in quality and price when it comes to donuts. I’ve had donuts in the Northwestern US (shops are few and the donuts are pricey and mediocre), Canada (Tim Horton’s donuts are the second worst I’ve ever had), and Japan (which are the worst - pretty icing on something not-dough). Maybe it’s mere hometown favoritism, but the best and most reasonably priced donuts I’ve encountered are from Asian-run, independent shops in Southern California serving up dozens in a plain pink box.
Ahem. We interrupt this thread for a public service nitpick:
Plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy, and are often mistaken for trees, but what appears to be a trunk is actually a “false stem” or pseudostem.
Thank you. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
Nitpick, but since when are donuts baked? Yes, I know some of the mass produced grocery store kind are, but most of the specialty places fry them.
Might surprise sone of you, but I’ve never cared much for them. Probably because they used to use lard and it upset my stomach.
BTW, I saw dozen count boxes of full size plain, chocolate, or powdered sugar doughnuts at the Pick ‘n Slave this morning for 99 cents.
A Krispy Kreme just opened by me. One Original glazed is $1.59, their fancy ones are $2.19. They’re cheaper than Dunkin, which I think now charges $1.89 per regular donut, and $2+ for a fancy one.