Krispy Kremes — no big deal!

For the past few years I’ve heard how Krispy Kreme donuts are ambrosia. Astore finally opened nearby, so I had to try one.

I am singularly unimpressed. They are just…donuts. Okay donuts, but nowhere close to Food of the Gods material. But they don’t use that acrid grease Dunkin’ Donuts uses.

So, what crap have you Krispy Kreme fans been eating that these are so much better than?

I agree. Everyone was very excited when a KK opened here. (Interestingly, these people tended not to be from CA. must be an ‘east-of-here’ thing.)

The boss brings KK doughnuts in periodically. I was underwhelmed. I prefer a good ol’ Winchel’s devilsfood doughnut. Or a Spudnut. The “glazed-raised” doughnuts KK serves seem only to be a matrix to hold grease. If I want to eat a grease-matrix, I’ll have a french fry.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=20319

For the record, Dunkin Donuts uses vegetable shortening (as opposed to acrid grease, lol). Or at least they did when I worked there eons ago.

I must post quickly and get away before the lightning strikes!! I don’t want to be hit with an errant shot.

BLASPHEMY!!! BLASPHEMY!!! BLASPHEMY!!!

Kr-spy Kr-me doughnuts (puting the name on anything makes that thing “holy” and therefore must not be destroyed) are truly a wonderful creation. As for the matrix, DUH! This is like saying “If I wanted to eat a shmear of cream cheese I’d scoop it out with a fork; I don’t need a bagel under it.”

Granted, KKs are mass produced and are limited in their ability to be supreme, and local bakeries might make singularly better doughnuts (MD dopers, go to Waldorf and stop in at Waal’s Bakery for one of their eclairs), but all must hail the KK.

Yeah, they’re just donuts. I think some of the mystique is supposed to be about watching them being made. Oh well.

The big boss here is a KK addict, and a few of the lower echelon suck-ups have been taking turns bringing them in for the whole office. So I have shoved a few down my gullet. Not sure I’d walk across the street for one, tho (or any donut).

Gazoo, I take it back. I don’t hate you.

I have everyone above me in this thread except spritle, who I now love.

Unless, Gazoo, you choose to take the side of the people above. In that case, I still hate you.

It’s definitely not worth the 2 hour wait in the drive thru unless…

you pick up one of the big giant orange cones that they use to contain the line and start yelling at other people in the drive-thru, workers, security guards, bushes, you know, whatever is around.

They do give freee samples to people waiting in the drive-thru. You could always take a bite of the donut then throw it out the window and yell out of your cone "these doughnuts suck!!! (after you’ve waited in line for an hour and a half of course)

Finally, when you get up to the speaker to place your order try and speak in broken speech. You know…“I wo…two box… of reg…nuts…and …boxes of … oh…and nap…ease.”

[sub]safety tested and marked with the steeljaw stamp of approval[/sub]

My ex g/f’s brother used to love KK dougnuts, insisting that they were the best anyone ever made. At one point, I got tired of it and went by a little do-nut shop down the street and got a couple dozen. I then put them in a KK box and took them to her house. He ate almost half of them, the whole time telling me how I couldn’t find dougnuts better than those he was eating. When he was finished, I told him where the doughnuts actually came from and he got pissed. Started saying he thought there was something different, etc., etc. FTR, I have nothing against KK doughnuts and will happily eat them if given the chance, but the idea that they’re so much better than the rest is all hype.

Winchell’s and Spudnuts aren’t exactly “local”. Their big chains.

[hijack]
Why don’t doughnut places put coffee in their chocolate doughnut batter? It would be good.
[/hijack]

Back in the streaking days two friends and I once had donuts and coffee in the KK Rt 1 south Alexandria with tshirt and sandals but no pants. No one noticed. Weird place.

When you drive by a KK and the ‘Hot Donuts’ sign is lit you can go in and get donuts right out of the fat. They must be eaten within five minutes! There is a certain amount of status afforded those who can bring fresh, hot, melt in your mouth like you’ve never had before donuts into the office. Let’em sit, they might as well be Hostess in a grocery store: cold and hard. As you get to know your new KK watch for that sign. No reason to enter unless it is lit.

Krispy Kreme doughnuts are excellent, considering that they’re made on a little assembly line in a corporate chain restaurant. They’re far ahead of, say, a McDonald’s hamburger in quality. But you do have to eat them within half an hour of coming off the assembly line, or they become quite ordinary. I think if local bakeries had hot doughnuts continuously throughout the day, they would compare favorably with Krispy Kreme, but they usually stop frying before they even open in the morning.

That being said, the lines that form at Krispy Kreme shops are all out of proportion to the quality of the doughnuts. They have become a “cult” thing, which I would define as something that generates a following based on its “mystique” and other socially determined things rather than based on the item itself. Kinda like Rocky Horror.

A classmate of mine was entertaining thoughts of trying to open a Krispy Kreme franchise in this town…until I went to their website and saw the criteria for obtaining a franchise. MAN, are they strict. Excerpts follow:

Cripes, $2.5 million to open a freakin’ donut shop? Subway only wants $65,000…

granted i adore all donuts, but KK are exceptional. their delight lies, as it has been mentioned, in the fact that they are warm and fresh and soft and gooey and with delicate icing gracing their succulent forms. but i’d have to argue, that if i could get Dunkin Donuts just as fresh as KK donuts come, i’d like them better.

  1. Probably true. Used to work by a REAL bagel bakery. Fresh, hot ones in their shop were fabulous. Once they cooled they might as well be from your handy freezer section.

  2. Excellent name.

Mmmmmmmmmm! Spudnuts! <gurgle-drool> Been a long time. They were so fluffy, thanks to the potato flour.

I’ve eaten them hot, I’ve eaten them cold.

In no condition would I go so far as to even call them good. They were edible. I actually slightly preferred them cold (but would still choose any Winchell’s donut over a KK).

I was quite amused at the incredible amount of attention devoted to Krispy Kreme opening its first stores in the Bay Area. People were acting like it was some momentous cultural event. Being from Kentucky, I was used to Krispy Kreme stores being pretty plentiful.

Pretty good donuts, in any case.

There are few people I know that appreciate a good doughnut more than I do and I have always found Krispy Kreme doughnuts extremely ordinary. They are produced by the millions and taste like it. No character whatsoever.

When traveling we often stay at hotels with a free continental breakfast. We usually eat whatever is offered at the hotel unless the hotel’s doughnuts are Krispy Kremes. I’d rather pay for breakfast than eat those things, even if they are free.

I have never understood the attraction since the day I first tried one. It always seemed like an “Emperor’s New Clothes” kind of thing to me. I’m glad to know that I’m not alone.

I know we talked about KK before, but I can’t find any nearby. I did notice there IPO went 2x the first day.

I grew up on Krispy Kremes (from precisely that Krispy Kreme, dustMagnate, a few years before the ‘streaking’ fad - did you grow up around there, or what?), and, except for the hot ones, I must admit I consider them to be decent but unexceptional donuts. Once they’re cold, the 3-for-99c donuts at Lion Food are every bit as good. And since Krispy Kremes cost about 65c each if you buy them one at a time, they’re a real rip.

[geezer]
Why, when I was a boy, the glazed ones cost 6c, and the most expensive ones cost maybe 9c each.
[/geezer]

So at least the price was right back then.

First, I’d have to go to Waldorf, the Land of Big Box Stores and Perpetual Traffic Jams. They’d have to be damned good eclairs. (spritle, you live in/near Waldorf (I assume), and you list your occupation as Statistics Geek. Do you work for the Census Bureau, by any chance?)

I’m unfamiliar with Winchell’s, but there used to be a Spudnuts in Charlottesville, VA. I’d always assumed it was local, because I’d never come across another one. Where are they, mostly?

As one who used to frequent the mecca that is the Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans and partake of beignets made fresh while overlooking the Mississippi and sipping Cafe Au Lait, I say KK, big deal.