Mahalo's Coffee & Mini Donuts — Restaurant in West Des Moines

Excellent place to visit whether you're local or visiting from out of town! This is Donut coffee shop is a small Nook in a strip mall. Hawaiian themed decor is well done. The mini Donuts are super tasty and made fresh to order. The mini Donuts are hot, super tasty, and priced very reasonably for the amount of Donuts you get. My girls absolutely love them and want to come back the next day for more. Today we started by trying the Classic doughnuts, powdered sugar and cinnamon. We love them both but I think the powdered sugar had a little more sweet flavor than the cinnamon, though it was a close call. Regarding the fancy Donuts, at the time of this review I saw 11 flavors on the menu. We're going to come back for the next three days and try all flavors. If you order a dozen mini Donuts, and want to try multiple flavors, they allow you to try 4 flavors in a batch of 12 donuts. That's three Donuts / flavor if you can't do math :-) I'll update this review once we try more!

Update: I met the owner today, super friendly. I was looking for chilled creamer (or equivalent) and he read my mind. I tried their Kona coffee blend today. Not all kona coffee is created equal as you may know :) My girls and I tried 4 more flavors today. We tried the honey one, coconut Grove, a sprinkles one, and cinnamon lava. We loved the cinnamon lava and honey one the most in this batch. More tomorrow!

Update 2: came in on a Sunday morning before church. We tried the smores, strawberry, salty seaside and turtle Bay. Out of the 4 flavors the strawberry was the clear winner according to my girls.

Final update: I brought all three girls in this time and tried the apple tiki, bacon sunrise, blueberry Beach, and a special one they whipped up for us :) they loved each one but I think the apple came out on top just slightly!

I think overall our favorites were: the classics (cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar), cinnamon lava, strawberry surf, apple tiki, and blueberry beach. We'll visit again when we're back in Iowa!...

We had heard good things about Mahalo's, and my fiance LOVE donuts, so when I found a Groupon for 24 Island style donuts I jumped right on it. We went on a Saturday morning around 10:45 am and their new location was easy to find. What a CUTE store front! The decor is whimsical but kind of classy cute at the same time. They hit the right tone for their theme without being over the top. We ordered 6 different flavors and I ordered an iced latte. I'm a coffee newbie, but the workers were very patient and helped me choose a drink I would like. Also worth noting that the ice cubes have coffee in them to help decrease how much they water down the coffee as they melt. A+!

We got to watch as they made the mini donuts right then and there, which was an added bonus. Here is a break down of the flavors and our reactions.

Bacon Sunrise: Very good balance of sweet and salty from the maple and bacon. My fiancé's favorite.

Blueberry Beach: Also a favorite of his, and my 2nd top pick. A nice subtly sweet blueberry flavor.

Cinnamon Lava: A great basic flavor, but done very well.

Hula Honey: A basic flavor for sure. Still good, but very simple and not as good as the others.

Salty Seaside: Great potential, but wish the salt came out a bit more.

S'more Shoreline: This was my favorite of the day. The mixture of chocolate and marshmallow was decadent and was great with the light and fluffy donut.

Overall, a GREAT experience. The customer service was great, the venue is adorable, and all the donuts melt in your mouth. We are telling all of our friends to check it out and will...

I'll start off by saying I have been to Hawaii and I know the coffee there is fantastic. I did not try the coffee at Mahalo's, just the donuts. Again, my review is solely on their donuts. I'm giving this place 2 stars because it's way overpriced, they got our order wrong, and the donuts were lacking "personality". We ordered 24 of the "island-style" donuts to-go and the styrofoam container was rather light to my surprise...which I will say that for $15.00 my wife, 5 year-old son, and myself didn't even consider that worthy of an appetizer from a substance standpoint. We ordered 6 (the maximum amount of variety for the 24 count) different flavors and didn't even get the blueberry ones we ordered..they were just plain with nothing on them. the apple tiki ones tasted like plain ones as well with some not having a small chunk of apple with them. The cinnamon lava didn't even have a cinnamon flavor to them. Again, I am still hungry and there was not much differentiation between the ones we ordered. They looked a lot better than they tasted. Stamp in photo shown for size reference. I will not be going back just from the standpoint that for $15.00 I can get two whole meals from Perkins or several pounds of bacon to...