Do you like donuts? We do! Dan and I live in New Town at St. Charles, a planned community based on principles of new-urbanism. As such, we can walk to stores, a pool, restaurants, and more. Until recently, our NT fair trade coffee shop offered donuts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings. Dan and I had a tradition of walking to The Bridge, getting one vanilla Long John and splitting it at breakfast. Honestly, it started with us going there one day each weekend, and somehow it evolved into us going in there all three mornings. Sometimes, the workers even saved a donut for us.

Well, the supplier for the donuts went out of business, and now The Bridge is looking for a new supplier who delivers. So, for the good of our community, Dan and I traveled 6.1 miles to a brand new store called The Donut Experiment. We wanted to check out their donuts, and maybe we could tell The Bridge about the place.

We went on a late Sunday morning, and the place was packed. It wasn’t what we expected. There were not conventional donuts, per say. The donuts are a light, sweet, cake-like donut, and smell ever so good. First, you look at the board to determine how you’d like your donuts. You can pick one icing and one topping for each of your donuts.

Then you fill out a form and hand it to the cashier.

Then you happily get your donuts.

The shop has an area where customers can sit and eat their donuts, and the store is decorated with several fun pictures. Beverages are also for sale. I didn’t see lemon icing as an option on the menu, one of my favorites, but the cashier told us that lemon is sometimes offered as a special, featured flavor. Can you call me? The donuts tasted great, and they tasted great the next day, too.

My only “negative” feedback is from something I saw while waiting in line for our donuts. You pick your icing and your topping, and a staff member creates your “experiment”. However, apparently a donut did not turn out quite right after a dipping, so the worker threw the donut in the trash. I had an immediate cringe – how wasteful! Can’t they save mistakes and sell them for a fraction, or donut (ha ha) them somewhere (nursing home, hospital, church), or even give them to workers at the Chinese restaurant next door? Something other than waste them? Please! Maybe they do this or will do something like this in the future, but I didn’t see it that day. It was a very busy day, so I am hoping there is a back up plan for mistakes other than the trash can.

Now, I know, eating a lot of donuts isn’t good for you, so we do try to follow my Grandma’s advice of “anything in moderation”. However, thinking about our past habit, here’s how the numbers work out:

	The Bridge	The Donut Experiment
Weekly cost	$3.00	$8.18
Weekly calories	(410*3)/2 = 615	750 (250 each no splitting, 3 x per week)

Please note: The calories listed are based on information I found online for similar items at Dunkin Donuts. It is my best guess, but it is a guess. We do walk about 15 minutes to The Bridge and another 15 minutes back home, so the 615 calories is mitigated some. We drive to The Donut Experiment, so no help there.

Dan and I were not sure if The Bridge would be interested in offering these donuts. We did go into The Bridge and mention The Donut Experiment. We wondered about the cost – would it be too much for The Bridge? Would The Bridge order enough to make it cost effective to have the donuts delivered? These are questions for others to answer, and time will tell us the answers.

For now, our question is: how often should we enjoy these donuts? The answer: We plan to enjoy them periodically. Ha ha ha.