Latest / Best of: Features / Why an acclaimed Bay Area cafe had to pull a doughnut for political reasons

Transcript

Why an acclaimed Bay Area cafe had to pull a doughnut for political reasons · Best of: Features

• 0:05
  Why an acclaimed Bay Area Cafe had to pull a donut for
• 0:08
  political reasons. This article is being read
• 0:14
  by an automated voice generated by Everlett. It was the fall of
• 0:19
  twenty twenty one, over eighteen months into the pandemic with the days
• 0:23
  getting shorter, and another COVID nineteen spike on the horizon. I was
• 0:27
  feeling down about another winter of masks and rapid tests, and was
• 0:30
  desperate, for any reason, to be optimistic. With a rambunctious pandemic puppy
• 0:35
  that desperately needed a walk, I took off from my Oakland apartment
• 0:39
  with no particular destination in mind. About a half hour later I
• 0:43
  arrived at Donut Savant, an unassuming corner shop in East Oakland. The
• 0:48
  good news, its jewel like handcrafted donuts shocked me right out of
• 0:51
  my pandemic malaise. The bad news. It ruined all other donuts for
• 0:56
  me. An impulse by My life was changed on that chilly fall
• 1:02
  morning, but I can't pretend I discovered the donut shop. Donut Savant
• 1:06
  is almost always included on lists of the Bay Area's top donuts.
• 1:10
  With their distinctive square shape, the donuts are built for social media
• 1:13
  and have become a favorite of Bay Area food influencers. During busy
• 1:17
  periods, Donut Savant can sell upward of 2,000 donuts per day. On
• 1:22
  Yelp and Google, reviewers write about the donuts in tones usually reserved
• 1:27
  for intense religious experiences. One commenter said the donuts will change your
• 1:31
  life. Another wrote that Don't Savant, set the bar for donuts for
• 1:35
  me. An even more devout convert added, If you are looking for
• 1:38
  a new addiction, look no further. With testimonials like that, you'd assume
• 1:43
  the donuts were crafted by a world renowned pastry chef. You'd be
• 1:47
  wrong. Laurel Davis, the shop's founder and owner, was working as a
• 1:51
  business development specialist for Comcast before she started Donut Savant on a
• 1:55
  whim. Davis had been experimenting with making donuts at home and decided
• 2:00
  she needed a fryer to take her baking to the next level.
• 2:03
  She went on Craigslist to find one. Instead she saw that a
• 2:07
  downtown Oakland donut shop was listed on the site. She had no
• 2:11
  intention of starting a business, but she found herself intrigued by the
• 2:14
  location, which was near her house, and conveniently above a Bart station.
• 2:19
  Anyway, I wound up buying that donut shop, said Davis casually. Who
• 2:24
  hasn't gotten carried away online shopping and ended up purchasing a business?
• 2:29
  Davis quit her Comcast job and threw herself into running a food
• 2:33
  business for the
• 2:33
  first time. She took workshops through the Alameda County Small Business Development
• 2:38
  Center on writing business plans. As for the baking side of things,
• 2:42
  she taught herself through trial and error. I had no idea what
• 2:47
  I was doing, she said. So yeah, it's been quite a learning
• 2:49
  process for me over the years. Through the first year, Davis worried
• 2:53
  her fledgling shop would fold, but she harnessed her anxiety into perfecting
• 2:58
  her product. I'm very competitive and willing to do whatever it takes
• 3:02
  to be successful, Davis said. Donut
• 3:05
  Savant served its first donut from its brick and mortar shop in
• 3:09
  downtown Oakland in May of twenty twelve. The original Donut Savant catered
• 3:13
  mostly to the office crowd. It was a success, but Davis didn't
• 3:17
  feel totally fulfilled serving mostly corporate workers. When she learned the shop's
• 3:22
  building was being sold, she took it as an excuse to move
• 3:25
  to a neighborhood where more Oakland residents actually lived and raised their
• 3:30
  families. Donut Savant moved to its current location on the corner of
• 3:34
  thirty eighth and Pennaman Avenues in twenty twenty. Today the shop features
• 3:38
  an industrial kitchen, a mouth watering window display, an espresso machine, a
• 3:43
  few tables, and, generally, a line out the door. The top seller
• 3:48
  Donut savant is best known for its cront, pronounced cronut, a cross
• 3:52
  between a croissant and a donut that is maddeningly good. The pastry
• 3:56
  is as delicious as it is contradictory, sweet and salty, firm yet
• 3:59
  flaky, buttery yet light. The kront comes in classic glazed, sugar dust,
• 4:03
  salted maple, chocolate, and the OMJ, glazed with marionberry jam filling. Shortly
• 4:10
  after opening, Davis started getting inundated with requests for Cronuts. I mean
• 4:16
  it was just like one day all of a sudden I was
• 4:18
  just getting multiple calls a day, she said. People were coming into
• 4:22
  the shop asking for it. I didn't even know what it was.
• 4:24
  She was initially wary of jumping on the trend, which is said
• 4:28
  to have originated at the Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York City's
• 4:31
  Soho neighborhood, but the demand was so overwhelming she reluctantly decided to
• 4:36
  make a few experimental batches of the geometric beauties. Does it look
• 4:40
  good? Does it taste good? Are people interested in it? Davis asked
• 4:44
  herself. The answers were resounding yeses, and the Cronut has stayed on
• 4:48
  the menu ever since. Even your donut is political. The Bernie is
• 4:54
  one of Donut Savant's signature offerings. A take on a Boston cream,
• 4:58
  but with a maple topping instead of chocolate, the donut was first
• 5:01
  unveiled in twenty sixteen to celebrate Senator Bernie Sanders campaign rally visit
• 5:06
  in Oakland. The maple frosting used in the donut is made with
• 5:10
  maple syrup from the Senator's home state of Vermont. The salted maple,
• 5:14
  a perfect mixture of sugary and savory, is the star, but the
• 5:17
  creme filling is also delightful and pairs perfectly with an iced coffee.
• 5:22
  The shop brews Emeryville based McLaughlin Coffee Company in a twelve ounce
• 5:26
  cup is just two dollars twenty five cents. The Senator never made
• 5:30
  it to the shop, but that didn't stop the doughnut from causing
• 5:33
  a stir. There were a couple of times when people would come
• 5:37
  in and begin arguing over it, because they wanted to know why
• 5:41
  we didn't have a Hillary Clinton donut, said Davis. Things got heated
• 5:46
  enough that Davis had to drop the Bernie from the menu for
• 5:49
  a short while. I was like, guys, that's why we can't have
• 5:52
  nice things, said a still exasperated Davis. Eventually the drama died down
• 5:58
  and the donut returned to the menu. But like its famously stubborn
• 6:02
  namesake, the Bernie stayed on message and kept its original title. Staying
• 6:07
  true to Oakland. While they work with some of the biggest companies
• 6:11
  in the Bay Area, Meta and Kaiser Permanente have been known to
• 6:14
  make bulk orders, the Donut Savant team is focused on serving their
• 6:18
  immediate neighborhood. This means ensuring that a trip to the donut shop
• 6:22
  won't break the bank, even for regulars who visit five times a
• 6:26
  week. Donuts start at just seventy five cents, glazed bars you can
• 6:31
  finish in about two bites, and even the larger, most expensive varieties,
• 6:35
  jam or creme filled like the Bernie, don't exceed four dollars. That's
• 6:40
  like a concerted effort on our part to provide an amazing but
• 6:43
  really affordable product for Oakland, man. We kind of view that as
• 6:47
  like our job in the city, said Owen Everett, the shop's lead
• 6:50
  baker. Working over the holidays, Donuts may be an everyday item, but
• 6:56
  the donut savant team likes to go the extra mile for certain
• 6:59
  holidays. Accordingly, they save some of their most popular items, like their
• 7:04
  famed donut breakfast sandwiches, for these special occasions. Creations include a Saint
• 7:09
  Patrick's Day themed corned beef hash cront breakfast sando, complete with wagyu
• 7:14
  corned beef, Irish cheddar and horseradish cream sauce, and a Father Day's
• 7:18
  crunch sando made with hickory smoked bacon and a sous vied egg.
• 7:22
  When December rolls around, Davis and her team get to the shop
• 7:26
  at midnight to put in thirteen hour days cranking out Soufgania, the
• 7:30
  jelly filled donuts traditionally eaten for Henneca. Omar Kamal, the shop's operations
• 7:35
  generalist, sees Hanukkah as an endurance test. Yeah, Hanukkah is a wild
• 7:40
  time, he said. But it's good getting through it. It's kind of
• 7:43
  like a ritual. A lot has changed since I wandered into Donut
• 7:47
  Savant nearly five years ago. My pandemic puppy is now a middle
• 7:50
  aged dog, and I live about a twenty five minute drive from
• 7:53
  the cafe. But my own ritual remains. I still visit Donut Savant
• 7:58
  for its unmatched quality, its affordability, and the unbridled joy I feel
• 8:02
  with the first bite of a cronte. Donut Savant, three thousand thirty
• 8:06
  eighth Avenue, Oakland. Open Wednesday through Sunday, seven AM to one PM,
• 8:10
  closed Monday and Tuesday.