I remember the helicopters flying overhead, radio DJ's remotely reporting from the new one in Maple Grove. cars backed up around the block. Can't say as I've ever bought one from a Minnesota store, but now that they're gone, I really really want one!!

Can you still get them at Target?

I personally love doughnuts, especially the doughy-bready type with the chocolate frosting and custard filling... But I could not stand more than one bite of a Krispy Kreme, they are far too rich and sweet for me. I tried them once, and couldn't understand why people like them so much. Then again, I don't like most sweets, including most chocolate, candy, and ice cream. Maybe I just have whatever is the opposite of a "sweet tooth."

Hi, my name is Russ and I love donuts...

"Hi Russ!"

Ok with that out of the way. I live in Raleigh, and we have Krispy Kremes out the wazoo. I'm originally from Pittsburgh where Mister Donut was the reigning king.

When I first moved down here, I couldn't stand Krispy Kremes. I've been here about 12 years now. I now really like them. The thing is, you have to learn how to eat them. Some rules:

Never buy them from somewhere other than a Krispy Kreme shop.

Always try to buy them while they are hot. They'll actually melt a bit in your mouth. Mmmm go lard!

Drink milk while eating them. Sure other donuts go fine w/ coffee (cake ones particularly) but KKs are so sweet that you need the milk to cut it.

Never get anything other than a simple glazed donut. An iced or filled donut might sound good, but that puts them up to a Cloying Factor of 12. It's just no good.

That being said, I prefer Dunkin' now. I like the cake donuts and a good jelly donut is tough to beat.

I drove past the Maple Grove KK just a few days ago, and I remember thinking, "Well, at least there's one left in the area." Spoke too soon.

Not that I ever bought any. Can't justify them in my diet.

And nothing is too sweet for me.

Krispy Kreme glops too much sugar glaze on their donuts - makes for an overly sugary mess. A light glaze, or best yet no glaze on a freshly fried ring, is much better.

My parents owned a Dunkin Donuts... I know donuts can be made well. We did.

--
Ooooh! Shiny!

I grew up with Dunkin Donuts. They're not high class, but they're still my favorite. When I go back to Chicago, or even pass through O'Hare, I have to load up. Custard bismarks and jelly doughnuts are the best, but a French cruller wouldn't go astray either. Excellent coffee, too.

MN doesn't have Dunkin Donuts. I've always felt that there's something ineffably sad about a state that doesn't have DD. How can it be? But on the other hand, Minneapolis and St. Paul both have a Wuollet's Bakery, which has primo doughnuts. The kind with the little crunchy seam around the side and actual frosting, not glaze.

When that orange neon "Hot Doughnuts Now" sign is lit, all is right with the world when it comes to doughnuts. When I worked at my employer's corporate office, my department had "Doughnut Fridays" every Payday Friday. Today's Payday. So I imagine someone drove to the local KK over there and bought a few dozen for the department. How I miss it.

The only "decent" doughnut shop near where I live or work is Dunkin, or else driving to the grocery store for their bakery doughnuts. Neither of them come close to Krispy Kreme.

I agree with the poster that said you have to get them from the KK store. Anywhere else is almost pure blasphemy. They have to be hot. Best way to enjoy them. Milk works best with them.

Krispy Kreme is the only place that glazes the doughnut after the chocolate icing is applied. This, I've discovered, keeps the icing in place, so it won't rub off onto other doughnuts, or the inside of the lid of the box. Also this allows one to peel the icing off the doughnut and eat it separately, if one so desires.

PatrickRsGhost

I love the tone of the KK video. It does seem shocked beyond speech. They should have ramped up the wind sound and rolled a couple of tumbleweeds through the shot, or alternatively, used a tolling churchbell.

Maybe you can entice a Tim Horton's franchise into building there eh?

No, not "doughnuts, in other words." More like "airily unsatisfying, hyperconcentratedly sweet synthetic doughnut carcasses." Never has there been a snack food so undeserving of the hype, except possibly Cheetohs. Okay, so the stores had a cute retro thing going. Take a picture.

I'm in Apple Valley and our KK has been closed for a while. Oh how I loved stopping there when the orange sign was on and picking up dozen or 2 for my students and co-workers! Yes, they were definitely best when warm!
My children also miss it! They have great memories of meeting our friends there for dessert after lunch!
I have to agree...it was usually pretty empty inside...but somehow my 4 year old still found a way to lose his stuffed puppy there and no one turned it in! I think the 4 kids 4 and under that my friend and I brought in were entertainment for the employees! My kids loved watching them clean the conveyor belt between the different kinds of donuts being made.

Well, I like the basic Krispy Kreme model myself, and don't even find them especially sweet compared to other doughnuts. But I do acknowledge that the idea of an overhyped doughnut is pretty funny.

That looks like the M.G. location, and I can't believe it. I recall when they opened, our office was on the next corner, and for days, the traffic was lined up waiting for donuts. We could barely get into our parking lot, and had to rely on the police that were directing traffic! We heard a rumor that the lines were so long and slow that the police were randomly checking licence plates to kill time. Turns out lots of donut lovers were also scofflaws.

For the record, we now have an entire generation that has never known the delights of genuine, home-made, old-fashioned donuts. My grandmother made them, and nothing you can buy anywhere today comes anywhere near.

I love the melt-in-your-mouthness of a good Krispie Kreme doughnut.......I miss them already!!
A few summers back, Hubby and I went up to Duluth and discovered that there was a little KK storefront at the hotel we stayed at. We got up early one morning, bought a 6 pack of KK and some beverages and hit the road for Split Rock and Gooseberry. Somewhere along the way, all the donuts disappeared. Yum! But we made a mistake and looked at the nutritional information.....BIG MISTAKE! On the other hand, we were completely sugared up for all our hiking :)

True, Lars. My mother made wonderful homemade, fried doughnuts perhaps once a year. It wasn't the dietary considerations since we were active, rural kids, that accounted for the doughnut drought. Rather it was her aversion to cleaning up the mess. No matter how careful the cook, there was always spatter on the stove, and a general dusting of confectioners' sugar on all six of us kids. Spoiled in my youth by my mom's doughnuts, I won't miss Krispy-Kreme. Condolences to those who will.

A barking dog. It definitely needed a barking dog.

That was among the top 5 best internet videos I've ever seen, in terms of sheer humor value. Really. The silence was so unintentionally poignant!

I worked at a Dunkin Donuts-style coffee and donut shop when I was a teenager and young 20-something. The chain is now owned by Tim Hortons, who are okay but nothing special. Anyway, I ate donuts every day of my life (sometimes nothing but donuts) for, oh, five years. I wasn't fat because I was on my feet 10 hours a day. Plus, I was young. But I'll probably die of a heart attack by 45.

Still, I miss donuts so much now that I eat "healthy," that I think it may be worth it.

Rumor has it: Don't despair, Dunkin' Donuts will be making a HUGE (1,000+ stores) westward expansion real soon now! You'll be able to get both doughnuts AND coffee! I'll feel like I'm in Boston, where the Dunkin' Donut store to block ratio must be 2:1.

They used to be found in a number of locations in Seattle, but all of them closed about ten years ago (I guess there's still one in Oregon, but that's the only one within 500 miles of here.) I was never all that impressed by Dunkin Donuts anyway, nor have I ever been too impressed by KK either (last I checked, we still have ours here.) As much as I do eat donuts these days (rarely,) it usually ends up being supermarket donuts.

The first one of these I ever had was in Ft Lauderdale, Florida, on vacation. At a tiny chrome covered retro looking shop. This is a great vacation food — you can eat when you're living it up and not caring about what you're eating. We're too healthy here in Minnesota for KKs - too bad though there isn't at least one in the metro if you're feeling like a guilty pleasure.

The first one of these I ever had was in Ft Lauderdale, Florida, on vacation. At a tiny chrome covered retro looking shop. This is a great vacation food — you can eat when you're living it up and not caring about what you're eating. We're too healthy here in Minnesota for KKs - too bad though there isn't at least one in the metro if you're feeling like a guilty pleasure.

The first one of these I ever had was in Ft Lauderdale, Florida, on vacation. At a tiny chrome covered retro looking shop. This is a great vacation food — you can eat when you're living it up and not caring about what you're eating. We're too healthy here in Minnesota for KKs - too bad though there isn't at least one in the metro if you're feeling like a guilty pleasure.

I never tried one. I recall vast opening ceremonies, long lines at the drive through, radio and TV coverage, but somehow never stopped in.

I'm waiting for a specialty soyburger outlet to open. Soys R Us. You can use that.

Krispy Kreme tried to establish a beach-head here in Houston a few years back. All of the free-standing stores have been converted into drive-thru banks or chinese buffets. I'm not sure that you can even get the mass-produced version at Kroger any more.

The problem I think was that the KK product was only marginally different than the well-established Shipley do-nuts, at least to the Houston palate.

Regardless of your do-nut allegiance, you have to admit that do-nuts have come a long, long way since Jane Parker's day!

I'm a Krispy Kreme fan; along with Starbucks coffee and Chipotle burritos, it's one of my top three guilty pleasures. Out of that has grown an odd ritual that my friends and I have for celebrating birthdays: the Trifecta, wherein we visit all three of those places in one sitting.

There's a specific order to it: First, we have a burrito at Chipotle, then walk over to Krispy Kreme to get a single donut apiece, which we take to Starbucks and have with our coffee. We definitely take our time while doing this, and it's always a great get-together.

(The walking part is important; the three places have to be within walking distance of each other. As of now, the only place to do that in my area is in the Dallas suburb of Frisco. There used to be a roadtrip version in the Austin suburb of Round Rock, but the Krispy Kreme recently closed and was replaced by a diamond store, of all things; I'm guessing they don't use the drive-thru anymore.)

There's also a variation called the "Chifecta" that was concocted by one of my friends who doesn't like Chipotle; in that scenario, Panda Express is substituted for the burrito. The Panda is conveniently located right between Krispy Kreme and Starbucks in Frisco.

We're fully aware that it's not exactly healthy, but that's why it only happens about four times a year at most. (That's even let up a bit lately; as of next Thursday, we will be one full year behind in the process. It also helps that Frisco is thirty minutes away from me, so the distance limits the frequency as well.)

One more thing:

I'm waiting for a specialty soyburger outlet to open. Soys R Us. You can use that.

I think someone already beat you to it. That "chain" has a stronghold in every public school cafeteria in the nation. ;-)

(Except for the really upscale schools that have Pizza Hut and Subway, that is.)

Speaking as a big fat guy with a sweet tooth, I never liked Krispy Kreme. The doughnuts ware just too over the top sweet, and they were too dense. My favorites at the moment are from King Soopers (the local Kroger's derivative). Their raised doughnuts are light and flaky and wonderful and have approximately 1/100th the amount of sugar of the KK variety.

I remember helping my grandmother make home made donuts, and there are none sold in stores that compared to them- hot, fresh and light. Yum. We glazed them or rolled in sugar. KK were sweet and good for what they are, but I would give up a life time of donuts from any store for just one more of my grandma's!

They were too agressive here for their own good. They built too many stores and made things worse when they started selling them in boxes at Target, Holiday and other stores. They probably would have been better off with just the Maple Grove and Mall of America locations. Their greed killed them here. Having several large stores and hiring too many workers to sell food that costs less than a dollar a piece just does not make business sense. I enjoyed their doughnuts a couple of times a month. I agree with those who said the doughnuts were best warm and with milk. Now we have no KK or Dunkin Donuts around. I guess we'll be okay. Those Lunds/Byerly's Donuts that Holiday also sells are pretty good actually.

Being diabetic I could only dream of eating those doughnuts. Before being diabetic I would go to White Castle and get those white glazed doughnuts and think the world of them. I thought there was a Krispy Kreme at the mall of america, where did that go? And will they still be availble at Holiday and Target?

As a Badger transplanted to the hometown of Krispy Kreme corporate offices, I have come to love the little breaded deep-fried lard balls. I didn't get it either until I'd lived here a long time.

One would need to produce and then sell a zillion doughnuts to make one of those big buck Hobart friers they had in each location, pay off. They are fun to watch in action, but maybe one or two machines would've been enough to supply local demand. $.75 a pop was too much for those greasers, anyway.
Only a Winchell's raspberry jelly filled glazed is worth that kind of "dough."

I hesitate to say this, I want to keep a small bakery just the way it is, but the bakery in Lindstrom has the most awesome glazed Scandinavian doughnuts. Ohhhhh, they are so good, but you have to be there early enough because they do run out.

A custard bismark? Surely you jest. 1, It's bismarck, as in Otto von; 2, never did it contain custard. Never. Ever. Jelly. Only.

I'm sure some of you out there might recall the rise and fall of Boston Market back in the late Nineties, and I'm seeing a number of parallels here. For those who aren't familiar with it, back around 1997-98 or so Boston Market started expanding aggressively, and for about six months or so it seemed like one of the things was opening up pretty much anywhere you looked. This overexpansion bankrupted the company, and every single one literally shut down overnight, leaving a trail of virtually brand new vacant buildings in its wake. The company managed to survive in a much smaller form, but there are none remaining in this area (and in fact, I believe the closest one to here would be found somewhere in Southern California.)

One of the things I've been meaning to do over on my own Blog one of these days is to go out and find all the old Boston Markets in the area and show what they got turned into. There are also a number of former Burger Kings that got closed down a few years ago in the area that have since been taken over (for some reason, a lot of those got turned into Starbucks locations...) Krispy Kreme might just be next on the list.

I know that I am kind of late getting into this but, in Raleigh we have an event called the Krispy Kreme Challenge. The challenge is to run 2 miles from the NC State U. belltower to the old KK building, eat a dozen doughnuts and run back. Yes, this was started by undergrads and several of the eaten doughnuts do wind up being violently expectorated by the side of the road. There is a website http://www.krispykremechallenge.com/ and remember, its for charity.

Keith

According to Boston Market's location web-site, they still have four stores in the Twin Cities area.
Best donuts and other sweet bakery items around my neighborhood:
Granny's on South Robert Street in West Saint Paul. I suspect the baker/owner lives in the shop; he's always there. He always cheerfully manages to sell you a few more items than you came in for. And they're all really, really good. KK was not in Granny's league, not even close, so around here there's nothing to miss with KK's closing.

Living a half hour from the city that started it all (and where the mix and stuff is still made), we have PLENTY of them here.

They do melt in your mouth, and they are delicious, but all I have to do is think about is the grease and the unlimited amounts of sugar and I pass.

But, sometimes, on occasion, it doesn't hurt to be a little absent-minded... ;op

There is a place in Columbia Heights (Central and 50th, I believe) that was originally a DD franchise; they bailed on that a few years ago and became a mom-and-pop sort of place called Jellies and Beans. (coffee beans, that is; I don't think they've developed doughnut beans yet)

We take the kids there after church on occasion or when we have to bribe the youngest to spring out of bed on a Saturday morning to attend (yet another) early tipoff at a basketball tournament for the eldest.

Last week, with his triumphant brother beaming proudly at his first place trophy, Youngest piped up so people within a six block radius could hear him, "I get a bowtie now, right, Dad?"

The apple-and-spice filled variety is the *best*.