Donuts are a magnificent creation that comes in all shapes and sizes, and in this ranking, I will consider three locations and four of their types of donuts: glazed, chocolate-glazed, jelly-filled, and apple fritters. The donut shops, Daylight Donuts and Coloradough, will face off against each other as well as City Market, which will be representing grocery store donuts. In order to determine my rating, I will factor in my own personal food taste, along with cost. This review is for the one and only Eli Schultz from the amazing Eli Eats. I can only hope to mimic the success that King Eli has made from Eli Eats.
City Market
The City Market I visited is located on Patterson Road. Donuts can be found in the bakery section. In general, their donuts tend to be dry and less fresh because of this. They tend to vary from small to medium size, relatively speaking. Their glazed donuts tend to be really dry and plain. I don’t know if this is because of the glaze topping, but regardless, they are not my forte. The chocolate donuts are nothing special either, they were just “meh” altogether.
The jelly-filled ones are the most lacking. The jelly feels as though it’s just a type of jam rather than jelly, which means it’s more chunky. The jelly donut itself has no hole and is filled with jelly inside, as the name would suggest. I like this, with it having more jelly, but with their lackluster jelly, it’s not a huge upgrade.
The apple fitters are actually better than I expected and decent compared to the other donuts, with the downside being that they are stale like all the others.
City Market has the advantage of being the cheapest of all the stores, and the location is fairly close to GJHS as well. One basic donut, like glazed or chocolate, runs you $0.89, and it costs $1.59 each for specialty donuts like jelly-filled and Apple Fitters. Doing the math that I totally did and didn’t ask someone for, a dozen would cost 5.00 according to
Daylight Donuts
Daylight Donuts is the longest-running donut shop on this list, having been established in 1959. It is the most classic and recognizable in town and is the one most known about. When you think “donut,” you probably think of Daylight Donuts.
They have two locations, but for this review, I visited the one at 230 E Lynwood St, which is in Orchard Mesa. The other location is along the I-70 business loop and 30 Rd. The donuts are also pretty decently sized, being medium-sized.
The Glazed donuts are quite exquisite, with the donuts having neither too much glazing nor
too little, creating a good balance and a great choice for a rather basic donut. The chocolate was also good, not being too rich, although there was nothing really special about it.
The jelly donuts were great, the jelly is just what I expected for a jelly donut. The donut, like the one from City Market, doesn’t have the iconic hole in the middle, having the jelly instead, which works out pretty well with the better jelly. In my experience, the donut can be a bit messy if you allow it to drip out.
The Apple fitters were also most delectable, with the medium size providing a good snack, not being too big or too small.
The pricing for these donuts is a little more than City Market, with one donut costing around $1.39. Using the foreseen cosmic computer known as the Calaclutar, a dozen would cost around $14.52.
Sweet Coloradough
Sweet Colordough is a store that sells super special donuts, which they describe as cronuts. These donuts are square-shaped with layered flaky goodness. But alas, I will not be including these cronuts in the review, but I thought they should be mentioned. Sweet Colordough is located on North Ave near Starbucks — roughly fifteen minutes from GJHS on foot. It was actually a Daylight Donuts location before being converted into Coloradough.
The donuts here are massively above average in size, which is reflected in the price tag. One donut will cost around $4, which, out of the other two locations, is by far the highest cost. For a dozen donuts, you have to cough up from your life savings $32.50 USD for donuts. I was in shock when I saw this, because I could never justify spending that much money on donuts.
The glazed donuts are really solid, being nice, big, basic donuts that are filling. The chocolate donut wasn’t my favorite, being very rich and chocolatey, which took away from the donut in my opinion.
The jelly-filled donuts were quite delicious, with the jelly in the donut being on par with Daylight’s Donuts. This jelly-filled donut had the iconic hole in the middle, unlike the ones from City Market or Daylight, with the jelly being in specific spots, which, for me, is not a bad thing, but not an advantage.
The apple fitter was good, but it was burnt on the sides. This let me down as it was pretty good, other than the incinerated charcoal on the sides.
Overall, I was really impressed with these donuts in particular. Though more expensive than the other stores by a considerable amount, the size is respected, as they are a lot bigger than the other stores.
Final Rankings
Now that I have shown the pros and cons of each shop, it is time to rank them. The first and best out of the three options is Coloradough. With the donuts being pretty comically big in size, one is more than enough to fill you. The downside to them is really only the price tag, which I feel is justified with their size.
Second on the ranking for me is Daylight Donuts. With them, you know that you will get a good, all-around classic donut. The downside to them is that they don’t have a lot of special donuts, and the ones they do have aren’t really good, but they aren’t horribly bad.
The last on the list is the City Market. The real upside to these donuts is that they are the cheap alternative and are more accessible to get. With the other shops closing early in the morning, City Market doesn’t close until 11 p.m., meaning you can acquire a donut at any time of the day. The donuts themselves are dry and just plain, which is not something that I look for in a donut.
