SloDoCo Donuts

SloDoCo is an overachieving donut shop. Even when compared to other innovative donut artisans around the country, it stands out as ambitious. Consider its most famous original creation, the galaxy donut. It looks like a glazed donut topped with lava from a lava lamp, its shiny crown made from marshmallow and some mysterious color sorcery. When you order one, you have a choice from a kaleidoscope of colors. You can request that one in the corner with a little purple, but unless you have an active imagination, you won’t taste purple. It’s hue, not flavor.

Also among SloDoCo’s original creations is the rainbow sherbet donut. It, too, takes a colorful approach, but in this case, flavor matches hue. An orange sherbet donut with its relentless, juicy citrus punch is one of the most original donut experiences we’ve ever had.

We don’t care much for candy- or cookie-covered donuts, but our love for muddy buddies (Chex cereal dusted in peanut butter and chocolate) convinced us to try again with a glazed chocolate and muddy buddy-covered donut. This is a great topping because the cereal is not too sweet and it provides pleasant crunch.

A popular and novel sub-genre in the SloDoCo case is the “pillow,” which comes in many variations. It’s a raised bar donut that is filled and glazed. A maple-glazed one comes stuffed with chocolate that winds up solid and crumbly, almost like the filling of a rugelach.

A SloDoCo specialty is the “blazed” donut. That’s a glazed ring with extra sugar before a brûlée. The idea is nice, but all that sugar makes it too, too sweet to enjoy more than a few bites before overkill sets in. That’s a problem with many of the innovative donuts here: they’re very sweet. Perhaps donuts like this are best for those people who want to limit themselves to one donut in a sitting. That is not us.

For all the novelties, we urge you to try a plain old classic. The buttermilk-rich old fashioned might not do any tricks, but we like it best of all. These folks do know how to fry a donut.

Excellent, unusual donuts make the SloDoCo worth a dessert stop, and locally roasted coffee and all-night hours make it a roadside oasis for anyone attempting to chart the Pacific Coast Highway. For locals, the SloDoCo is even more: a reliable, welcoming place to sit and work (on the house wifi), play (house-supplied board games), or listen do your friend’s band play on open-mic night. The most charming example of the strong community spirit is a wall full coffee mugs belonging to regulars. If you lived hereabouts, why would you have your morning coffee anywhere else?