Wake N Bake Donuts - Carolina Beach — Restaurant in Carolina Beach

UPDATE/EDIT: Visited a couple more times, adding a star to my rating. Caught them when their donuts were a bit fresher and it really made a difference to me, especially with their gigantic, dinner plate sized fritters and cinnamon rolls (which were ridonkulously good). Also didn't mention this in my initial review, but their staff is always friendly and on point. If you catch them serving that jalapeno corn bread cake donut, trust me on this, TRY IT!

You hear people round here saying "oh, you GOT TO come try this place" all the time, but in my opinion they're kinda overrated. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying their donuts are bad at all. In fact, since they use real fruits and ingredients, they're pretty good... But, they aren't the end-all-be-all of the donut world like some would have you think.

The only complaint about their ingredients I can make is about their water. Their location necessitates they use well water, discovered this after drinking some from a pitcher provided for those who were waiting in line. For whatever reason, that sulfury kind of aftertaste well water has was far more prevalent than in other parts of the city. It's not something they can be helped, without them changing location at least, so I can't fault them.

A lot of their novelty is in how directly this place is aimed at its target demographic, which really seems to be the millennial stoner type. Not only is their name an obvious reference to stoner culture, but many of their donuts and toppings seem to be ideas spawned from someone who's taken more than a few bong rips. Examples: Maple & bacon, potato chips, Fruity pebbles and other cereals as toppings... You get the idea.

TLDR: They make "OK" donuts...

Pretty cool spot. The employees are all always so friendly and welcoming. Lots of fun donut flavors. I've tried a few and have my favorite but so far almost everything has been great. My 2 least favorites would be the snickers bar inside a donut. It was just way too sweet for me and I guess I was hoping for an ooey gooey experience but the candy bar goes back to being hard after the donut cools so you just have a hard candy bar in a donut. I didn't love it. I have been trying forever to get a pie slice donut and they are always sold out. I had my heart set on pecan pie but honestly I love all pie so I'd be happy with any. Yesterday dreams came true and there was one pie slice donut left. Apple pie was the pie for the day. It was good but disappointing because it was uncooked. I'm not sure if they undercooked the pie thinking it will cook while the donut fries or if they undercooked the donut because it is so huge and if they cook it more the outside will be overcooked. Either way I was eating raw dough in the center of the donut. Other than the raw dough the flavors were great. Some favorites to mention would be strawberry cheesecake, creme brulee, blueberry cheesecake, really any of the...

I love donuts and always try to find a donut shop in every town/city I visit while vacationing. I had heard a lot about Wake N Bake, so I decided to give it a try. I got a half dozen. They definitely are more "cake" donuts (for those who don't like cake donuts, you may want to skip) but overall they weren't bad.

The Butterfinger Bash was my favorite with the white icing and Butterfinger bits making for a good combination.

I was a wee bit disappointed with the Couch Potato merely because I had hoped for a much stronger mix of salt and sweet with the broken potato chip pieces. However the chips were a bit soggy so they'd lost their crunch and salt flavor.

My go-to standard at any donut shop (or what I compare) is just a standard rainbow sprinkles with chocolate (or vanilla icing). It wasn't bad at all. Definitely not the tops (compared to other places I've been) but also not the worst either.

My chocolate iced cream filled...well, maybe it was an off day, but there was no cream to be found whatsoever inside.

Honestly, if/when I go back, I'll probably just stick with the plain glazed as they were very tasty. And my Mom loved the apple fritter.

Definitely a unique shop and I would...