Duck Donuts — Restaurant in Town of North Hempstead

Too many 5 stars, must be all friends and locals. Time for honesty. Did I get your attention? Good!

So today was the grand opening in Garden City Park, New York, on Jericho turnpike. The line was about 50 people long at a minimum and from what we heard that was all day. They basically have one donut, the old fashioned (aka cake dough). They put any topping (please note these toppings do not taste anything more than artificial) you want on it. The donuts are not large, in fact they are the size of a D&D donut (about 2-1/2 oz which is 1.75 oz before the fryer). For $3 each donut and the fact that they only have one type of donut (regardless of what topping you put in it) which IS a cake, I'm not sure I'll be going back.

Now some knowledge. Cake dough types of donuts are the kind you find in powdered sugar and old-fashioned Cinnamon and sugar coatings. Both are dry coatings. Yeast-risen donuts are usually the type that you find at krispy kreme and Dunkin. They hold liquid coatings much better, maintain a nice crisp (we used to call them crispers because you can toast the skin) and they can be filled, unlike cake donuts. These cannot be filled.

So I think the company (not the franchisee, but corporate) has made the decision to stick with cake dough style because it's what they've been doing for years. I truly believe this was a mistake. Sure it saves on expense and offers a more dense product, as well as allows them to down size the donut but in the end, they are selling a smaller product for a higher price which I truly do not believe is compatible with the accessorization (yes it's a real word) of many of toppings they are using.

I think corporate took a poorly conceived concept, wrapped a huge financial package around a franchise and are pushing it as hard as possible not realizing that some people truly enjoy donuts for what they are, a pastry, not a snack.

Their product is good if you want to pay extra for a Cinnamon and sugar old fashioned (oh they do have good coffee too). I am very uncertain about the super high calorie breakfast sandwiches on their donuts. It's bad enough we have so many health concerns in this country, corporate did not have to push that bad idea.

Knowing that the business is a franchise I am assuming that the franchisee is a local and for that I really hope that they do well as all local businesses deserve as much loyalty as they give back to the community. If they ever start using yeast dough or offer a product worthy of such a high price I may...

Weird odor at the cashier like moldy water , they can’t help that , new cashier was very friendly and wasn’t overwhelmed with learning a new system , they person making the doughnuts , OMG , my adhd went into overdrive , the toppings were all visibly old and caked and you could tell it was either crazy busy today or they just don’t use clean topping containers the jelly’s looked about 1/2 inch thick of hardened toppings a spooon couldn’t penetrate , the mixing bowl , the mixing bad the machine , the tongs by the dryer were coated with harden doughnut batter then dipped into fresh batter and the process just kept happening nothing was clean , the milkshake is what I orders lmao , 1st the cups were washed but not well there was chocolate sauce in both Medal cups for shakes , gloves were used to handle the trash bucket had to pull it out cause both ice creams were empty then to put in back in grabbed the trash ring in the counter to throw stuff away with same gloves 2x and proceeding with using the same gloves he touched basically everything with went into the ice cream ( new ones ) without changing gloves lol . I do not think this is a worker problem , the workers were all nice and had great attitudes and smiles . The problem is the owner not having someone there for food safety reasons and also that deep fryer , I was like well maybe the doughnuts will dry off the germ , I avoided everything I payed for two shakes and before they were even scooped ice cream into the cups that again were already washed and had leftovers from other shakes , I just couldn’t . Please keep this place clean and do better with teaching there young adults in high school that presentation means everything especially selling a cool product like flash...

I remember seeing a sign for an upcoming donut shop as I live within a 10 min drive and often in the area. I was able to finally get my hands on a dozen (okay maybe more) donuts.

The good stuff: Everything. I have never had such amazing donuts in my life. I have only had Dunkin, Krispy Kreme and a few “artisan” donuts . This blows ALL out of the water. Fresh MADE TO ORDER donuts which you can select from a vast array of amazing flavors and even make your own gem. The place is clean, workers looked very efficient and I loved the way that COVID protocols were perfectly followed as I am often hesitant to go out but Ducks Garden City did right! The owner Omar had introduced himself to the hungry crowd members and seemed very genuine as well as polite.

I devoured 2 on the spot and I was unable to speak for a few minutes (literally) as it was probably the best antidote for a sweet tooth I have ever had. I brought some home and my family who is quite picky was in heaven as they stated, they never had a donut that tasted like this. I guess they were used to stale ole donuts like me. No more.

Duck Donuts, you have a customer for life and thank god your across a gym because I might be too frequent of a...