Duck Donuts — Restaurant in Irvine

Unique concept Fresh Donuts made to order Good, unique selection

Rude and passively aggressive cashier Extremely bad customer experience

I was really disappointed with our visit this past Sunday. We ate at TRADE and then walked over to get donuts for dessert at around 7:40PM. We've never been or heard of Duck Donuts before, so we were excited with their concept of fresh custom donuts.

From the get go, the cashier seemed a bit impatient with us. We ordered a 1/2 dozen and took maybe 1-2 minutes to decide on our donuts. It really seemed like we were bothering her, or maybe something we did irked her. I just brushed it off, maybe she's having a bad day.

When they called our order, my wife goes excitedly pick up the donuts and says something along the lines, "these look amazing" - to which the lady ignored and just walked away. We then set our box near the trash bin and began cutting our donuts so it'd be easier to eat when we head outside. The lady then says something to the effect, "you know this is a to go place right?". In the moment, I wanted to ask her, "what's your problem", but had self control and we just left.

I don't know why she needed to be so rude. Sure, by the time our donuts were done, it was almost 8PM (the time their store closes). Maybe she had a bad day and wanted to get home, who knows. Doesn't give her the right to take it out on her customers.

If you plan on checking out Duck Donuts, just go for the donuts, don't go expecting a good experience. Think, Chinese restaurant, go for the food not the service. Oh, and remember, it's "to go only", so get your donuts and leave right away before they...

Duck donuts are delicious but their not the old fashion doughnuts that I love. Coke vs. Pepsi. New York-style vs. Chicago-style pizza. Milk chocolate vs. dark chocolate. Shake Shack vs. In-N-Out and now cake doughnuts vs fried doughnuts. The more popular kind of donuts (I think) are yeast donuts. These are the bready ones and kind of bounce back when you pinch or poke it. Cakey ones, however, are the ones which are dense, crumbles apart when you break it and tastes like cakes of course. I think they're also called traditional donuts. The Duck Doughnuts are hard glaze on some are even worse. It's like you can feel all the sugar slide against your teeth but this doesn't happen with the yeast kind. Plus, when cake donuts get cold it's more like stale cake. Bleh. I’m old school doughnut man. My favorite is the Bacon in the Sun & the Beach Ball. As good as it was, it was a sugar overload- which isn't bad for the energy you get. I have a feeling this will get boring quickly and the initial interest will fade. It already has for me....

Duck Donuts was a good experience. The donuts are made to order, so they are fresh, warm, and extremely good. They also add whatever topping you would like, which includes every yummy sweet sprinkle, drizzle, or glaze one could imagine. I got a "Smore's". It did not disappoint. Amazing! They also have breakfast sandwiches with either a bagel, English muffin, or on a plain cake donut (so good). I'm a big drink guy; the drink offered is important to me. They have a plethora of drinks, including coffees, lattes, hot chocolate, sodas and juices. They would have gotten 5 stars if the young lady serving us would have smiled with any interest in making us feel welcome instead of looking down the majority of the time. Both workers, one male, one female, were efficient enough and did complete our order with wonderful results. 👍🏼 Duck donuts only has vanilla (the batter) donuts. No chocolate plain cake. 😔 Yet!? But again, they have lotsa...