With the recent opening of Voodoo Doughnuts, Austinites can add another bizarre location to their list of go-to sweet shops. But with the shop closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, many may be looking for alternative donut vendors. The Daily Texan has compiled a list of four places where donut lovers can satiate their cravings.
Ken’s Donuts — 2820 Guadalupe St.
Ken’s Donuts 24-hour service allows UT students to grab donuts at even the strangest hours of the night. This old school donut shop is reminiscent of the mom and pop bakery that everyone grew up down the street from. There is no extravagant flair to the donuts they offer, just classic simplicity that will take anyone right back to their childhood mornings filled with cartoons, pillow forts and sugar-filled breakfasts. Ken’s offers a wide array of classic donut and donut holes, including blueberry, nut-topped, glazed and jelly-filled. It also gives customers the option of chowing down on kolaches, samosas, bear claws and eclairs.
Mrs. Johnson’s Bakery — 4909 Airport Blvd.
Mrs. Johnson’s Bakery has been serving fresh donuts to the Austin community since 1948. This long-standing gem serves all of the staples of a good donut shop. It offers a wide variety of filled donuts, including raspberry, lemon, apple and strawberry, as well as cake donuts including blueberry cake, strawberry cake and cinnamon cake. Mrs. Johnson’s also carries cookies, bagels, croissants and kolaches. One of the nicer facets of Mrs. Johnson’s is its late-operating drive-through service for rainy days when people do not want to leave the warm comfort of their cars. Mrs. Johnson’s is open seven days a week from 12 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. to 12 a.m.
Gourdough’s Doughnuts (Food Truck) – 1503 S. First St.
Gourdough’s puts a new twist on how donuts can be enjoyed. Instead of offering traditional trays of donuts to choose from, this donut truck takes a single donut and smothers it in a variety of different topping combinations. Patrons can try items such as the Funky Monkey with grilled bananas, cream cheese and brown sugar, or Son of a Peach with peach filling, cinnamon and cake mix topping. For more ambitious customers, Gordough’s offers more unorthodox donut pairings such as the Mother Clucker with fried chicken strips and honey butter. Those who want to try different parts of different donut options can mix and match toppings to create their own work of pastry art. Perfect for a late Monday night of studying, Gourdough’s is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 12 a.m.
Clunkers – 2512 Rio Grande
Clunkers does not center its menu around donuts but instead uses them as buns for different sandwiches and burgers. Its menu is brief, but intense. Its fluffy donuts bind together the ingredients of a BLT, a bacon cheeseburger, a grilled cheese, a pulled pork sandwich and a tilapia sandwich. Clunkers does not completely ignore the donut by using it as a bun, though. They doctor up their donut buns by garnishing them in glaze, apricot barbecue sauce, powdered sugar, sriracha and jalapenos, depending on the sandwich. Clunkers solves the problem for people who decide they want a donut as well as a hearty meal, but don’t have the time to split the two up. Clunker is conveniently located in the heart of West Campus and is open Tuesday and Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Thursday through Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m.
