A doughnut or donut is a type of pastry made from leavened fried dough. It is popular in many countries and is prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and franchised specialty vendors. Doughnut is the traditional spelling, while donut is the simplified version; the terms are used interchangeably.
Verne Hedges Winchell was the founder of Winchell's Donuts and also served as a chairman, president, and chief executive officer of the Denny's restaurant chain.
Krispy Kreme, Inc. is an American multinational doughnut company and coffeehouse chain.
Dunkin' Donuts, trading as Dunkin' since 2019, is an American multinational coffee and donut company, as well as a quick service restaurant. It was founded by Bill Rosenberg (1916–2002) in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1950. The chain was acquired by Baskin-Robbins' holding company Allied Lyons in 1990; its acquisition of the Mister Donut chain and the conversion of that chain to Dunkin' Donuts facilitated the brand's growth in North America that year.
Winchell's Donut House is an international doughnut company and coffeehouse chain founded by Verne Winchell on October 8, 1948, in Temple City, California. Currently, there are over 170 stores in 6 western states, as well as Guam, Saipan, and Saudi Arabia. Several stores also operated in Nagoya, Japan in the past, with most stores located inside Uny supermarkets, as Uny Co., Ltd. was the master franchise holder in Japan. It is headquartered in the City of Industry, California.
A cruller is a deep-fried pastry popular in parts of Europe and North America. Regarded as a form of cake doughnut in the latter, it is typically either made of a string of dough that is folded over and twisted twice to create its signature shape, or formed from a rectangle of dough with a cut in the center allowing it to be pulled over and through itself to produce distinctive twists in the sides of the pastry.
Randy's Donuts is a bakery and a landmark building in Inglewood, California which is near Los Angeles International Airport. It is built in a style that dates to a period in the early 20th century that saw a proliferation of programmatic architecture throughout Southern California. This style had its heyday from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s. By the 1950s however, the trend of designing structures in the shape of the product sold there had changed to focus on signs rather than architecture itself. Randy's is represented by a giant doughnut on the roof of an otherwise ordinary drive-in that is a dedicated doughnut bakery. The building was designed by Henry J. Goodwin.
Mister Donut is an international chain of doughnut stores. It was founded in the United States in 1956 by Harry Winokur. Primary offerings include doughnuts, coffee, muffins and pastries. After being acquired by Allied Domecq in 1990, most of the North American stores became Dunkin' Donuts. Outside of the United States, Mister Donut maintains a presence in Japan, El Salvador, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Singapore.
William Rosenberg was an American entrepreneur who founded the Dunkin' Donuts franchise in 1950 in Quincy, Massachusetts, one of the pioneers in name-brand franchising, originally named the "Open Kettle" doughnut shop when established in 1948. At the end of 2011, there were more than 10,000 outlets of the chain in 32 countries.
Krispy Kreme is an American multinational coffeehouse chain that specializes in doughnuts. As of 2024 it operates in 35 countries worldwide.
Ted Ngoy is a Cambodian American entrepreneur and former owner of a chain of doughnut shops in California. He is nicknamed the "Donut King".
Citrus Plaza, along with the adjacent and contiguous Mountain Grove shopping center located in Redlands, California, United States, are owned by Majestic Realty Co. It consists of 520,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, anchored by Target, Kohl’s, Barnes & Noble at Citrus Plaza and Nordstrom, Hobby Lobby, Ulta and Nike at Mountain Grove. The entire shopping center sit on 53 acres of a 120-acre master planned super block. Citrus Plaza opened in 2004-05. and Mountain Grove opened in 2015.
Coffee and doughnuts is a common food and drink pairing in the United States and Canada. The pairing is often consumed as a simple breakfast, and is often consumed in doughnut shops as well as coffeeshops. The pairing may also be served and consumed as a refreshment.
Daylight Donut Flour Company, LLC, doing business as Daylight Donuts, is a privately owned and operated American chain of doughnut shops, founded in 1954 and headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The chain has approximately 950 locations in 13 countries. Each Daylight Donuts store is independently owned and operated.
Duck Donuts is an American doughnut shop chain based in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Duck Donuts was founded in 2006 in Duck, North Carolina, by Russ DiGilio and Robin Griffith, and has since expanded to over 100 locations in the United States. The chain's products include customizable, made-to-order doughnuts, other baked goods, and a range of beverages.
Blue Star Donuts is a small chain of gourmet donut shops. The business has operated in Portland, Oregon, Los Angeles, and Tokyo.
General Porpoise is a chain of doughnut shops in the United States. The business has multiple locations in Seattle and previously operated in Los Angeles.
The big donuts of Southern California in the United States are frequently photographed examples of 20th-century vernacular roadside novelty architecture. They are landmark oversize donuts designed to attract the attention of potential customers on nearby roadways. In their heyday, according to one critic, the giant donuts were "one of many signs in Los Angeles that bordered on pop art, celebrating the effusiveness of life in the years after World War II. To many Americans, Southern California acquired the image of an orange juice stand shaped like an orange, or a hot dog stand shaped like a hot dog."
