Good Taste points you to delicious food in the Bay Area. Today’s column offers an alternative to waiting hours in line for donuts with bad intentions.
Behind the paywall of a certain billionaire-backed San Francisco media outlet exists a smug assessment of seemingly anyone who writes about or enjoys supporting new local food businesses and has decided not to wait in line for the new combo donut shop-café-cocktail bar that recently opened in West Portal, whose co-owner has a diet and boner pill company that donated to January 20’s main event in DC.
Yes, that was a ridiculous and overblown sentence. And the truth.
Anyway, we still have Good Taste over here. This week’s column hopes to send some love, light, and business to some local donut shops that don’t have owners who kiss the ring.
Donut World (1399 Ninth Avenue) used to be open 24 hours a day, which made it one of the city’s few post-club destinations for those on the west side of the city. It’s now open during the still very impressive hours of 6am and midnight. Fourteen blocks away, Uncle Benny’s Donut and Bagel (2049 Irving Street) opens at 4am, so there are only a few hours where the Sunset District or anyone passing through can’t get some reliably excellent donuts (and, in Uncle B’s case, a wide array of substantial breakfast sandwiches). Both have been around to serve their neighborhoods for decades.
The original location of Bob’s Donuts (1621 Polk Street) is still open 24 hours a day, while the little sister shop, Bob’s on Baker (601 Baker Street) operates from 6am to 9pm. We waited in a three-person line at the Polk Street location at 9:30pm one recent weeknight; a guy kept trying to get us to open the fridge so he could swipe some milk, but it’s otherwise pretty easy to get a giant cinnamon roll or apple fritter at most hours. (I like Uncle Benny’s better, though.)
If the line is too long at Bob’s on Polk during the day, you can get a free donut hole with your purchases at nearby Donuts & Things (1549 Polk Street). They also have banh mi!”
It’s not really in our nature to hate too hard on a donut shop, but we haven’t had a donut shop so worthy of hating. If you’re craving a bougie donut, we are always happy having Magic Donuts (1675 Mariposa Street) or Dynamo Donut & Coffee (2760 24th Street). Just one plea: Hold the bacon donuts, please.
Tamara publishes the California Eating website, newsletter, and zine.
