The parking lot–scape of northerly Aurora Avenue looks much as it did when American autos ruled American life. Ditto, to the max, for the doughnut shop perched in a shopping center parking lot, only a smidgen removed from a past identity as a Dunkin’. These days, family owners make classics with care: double chocolates, twists, a half dozen types of doughnut holes, and a really lovely honey-dipped. Cake doughnuts and old-fashioneds come out of the fryer with a bit more crunch than they do elsewhere, a nice change of pace. Prices remain as retro as the atmosphere.

The famed brioche rounds from London’s St. John bakery inspired Renee Erickson’s handful of doughnut shops. The menu is focused: maybe five flavors of cream, jam, or curd filled sugar-dusted brioche moons. A few seasonal flavors (quince jam, pistachio cream, tiramisu) rotate among standards like vanilla custard and the lemon curd that tastes like British springtime. Hot pink La Marzocco espresso machines drive a multi-roaster coffee program that’s every bit as impressive as the doughnuts. Visit the Laurelhurst location early enough and you can snag some unfilled less-than-perfect doughnuts from the main kitchen.

What began as a farmers market stall treats doughnuts like dinner. Seasonal produce drives the weekly flavors; classic combinations like fennel, apple, and lemon would work on a salad just as well as a fritter. And, just like with entrees at a restaurant, owner Justin Newstrum fries every doughnut to order. At the truck or in his West Seattle commissary kitchen, Newstrum makes four types of doughnuts at a time, every installment different from what came the week before. Generally, it’s one cake doughnut and one filled brioche, a fritter of some sort and a “wild card."

Bakers work nearly around the clock to produce an astonishing 60-plus doughnut varieties. By morning, cake doughnuts sport every sprinkle iteration you can imagine, while rows of raised doughnuts are bedecked in flair—smoky bacon, Fruity Pebbles, even a full-size peanut butter cup on a field of chocolate glaze. Customers can also special order alphabet-shaped doughnuts to spell out prom asks, birthday wishes, or other salutations that might benefit from fried dough. Not that Donut Factory is all about novelty: The case contains exemplary crullers, fritters, Bavarians, cinnamon roll–esque Pershings, and the shops’ best seller, a feather-light classic maple bar.

Genuinely original creations hail from the busy mind of co-owner (and former Macrina head pastry chef) Mi Kim. While Raised does right by a few classics, good luck passing up monthly specials like caramel crunch crullers, or an orange-glazed topped with a squiggle of burnt sugar. Kim was also an early Seattle proponent of mochi doughnuts, with their singular texture. Even her doughnut holes, coated in freeze-dried raspberry dust, make innovation delicious. Kim posts each month’s flavors about 10 days in advance, but the weekend specials, a Friday cruller and usually something filled for Saturday and Sunday—are similarly adventurous. Raised now occupies a serene storefront in the Midtown Square complex.

Doughnuts are, mostly, a specialized food, like pizza and tacos, in that you almost never want your doughnut from a place that sells anything other than doughnuts. Ben’s Bread is the exception to that rule, with their witty doughnut “wholes” measuring up to the standard set by their sourdough loaves and breakfast sandwiches. The (already large) doughnuts come with a bonus doughnut hole perched in the center, often integrated into the design of the doughnut, as in the chocolate pumpkin spider at Halloween, or the flavor, which might be honeycomb, key lime pie, or chocolate pecan with caramel cream inside the hole.

A pair of joyful pink doughnut shops make brioche dough that manages to be both totally vegan and totally delicious. Fanciful flavors include vanilla biscoff, strawberry milkshake, everything bagel, and carrot cake, but the classics are just as compelling. Lots of customers don’t even realize the doughnuts are egg- and dairy-free, but they definitely notice the tiny one that comes stuck on the straw or stir stick of every coffee drink.

New owners took the helm at this amiable White Center doughnut shop situated next to a weed store and laundromat at the dawn of 2025, and super fans await news of Good Day's future.  Currently closed, the neighborhood hub has been a culinary landmark for doughnut fans who appreciated cofounder Erik Jackson’s chef sensibility; he previously headed the kitchen at Vendemmia. The shop leaned classic (this is a no-bacon zone), and scratch-made (the pink glaze on the Homerian sprinkle doughnuts tastes of real raspberries), with hints of the owners' culinary backgrounds still evident—in the breakfast sandwiches, the lunchtime subs, and sea salt–glazed doughnuts.

Top Pot cofounder Michael Klebeck partnered with Christine Cannon for this unrelated doughnut counter. It’s less about classics and more about caramelized pineapple cronuts, almond joy old-fashioneds, and stuffed “bombas” inspired by desserts like s’mores or bananas foster. Though Half and Half’s at its best when it remixes nostalgia, lacing mini doughnuts with cherry cola, or finding flavor inspiration in banana pancakes. Mini cronuts and old-fashioneds let you partake without needing an immediate nap.

It’s pretty incredible that owner Pamela Vuong taught herself the art of ethereal brioche doughnuts, which she pipes full of sophisticated cross-cultural combos like coconut milk pudding with tapioca balls, Thai tea cream, or roasted banana, each doughnut’s contents poking from the top with some sort of artful flourish. The Flour Box began as a popup, then transformed into an inviting Hillman City bakery. Managing the crowds is Vuong’s forever challenge; lines build down the block before the shop opens at 10am. Consult her handy FAQ before you queue (ordering a coffee drink online helps keep things moving).

Vincent Davis’s strip mall doughnut paradise gets a lot of attention for unexpected flavors like torched buttercream or peach cobbler or chicken and waffles, but his combos never feel like gimmicks. Zuri’s makes its own icing—coffee, horchata, ube, mango—and produces a rotating cast of 50-plus doughnut varieties. Davis applies a similar enthusiasm to the Kona coffee and providing allergen-free options.

The longtime Rainier Beach neighborhood hub now has a home in the former Beach Bakery location. Owner Hong Chhuor and his husband, Razz Hass, have taken over from Chhuor’s extended family. The laundry machines and teriyaki machines are long gone; the coffee program reflects Chhuor’s barista background. But it’s still an easy gathering spot for the neighborhood. And the doughnuts, thankfully, remain the platonic ideals of themselves, from cake doughnuts with Seahawks-themed sprinkles to buttermilk bars, twists, and jelly filled. Pickings get slim by about 10am.

A family with roots in Argentina and Venezuela produces ornate brioche doughnuts in flavors representing pastry traditions from across Latin America. Cuban pastelitos de guayaba y queso make fine inspiration for a doughnut, as do churros and Mexican chocolate. The doughnut version of tres leches cake is a marvel of both physics and flavor. Founders Damian Castillo and Claudia Monroy convinced Castillo’s parents to transplant their decades of baking experience from Miami to Seattle; they developed a brioche dough that ferments for 24 hours, at once strong and airy. Doce’s doughnuts feel more like carefully crafted dessert than on-the-go breakfast. But they’re also great with coffee.