Bloedow Bakery — Restaurant in Winona

For several years of my youth I lived a block away from Bloedow's. Their building was even on my Winona Daily News paper route. Every week on Saturday morning my friends and I would walk over and purchase a dozen donuts for our weekend shenanigans. Then I left Winona.

For 23 long years I have traveled and lived around the world. I have had many donuts during this dark age, but none compared to Bloedow's. A fact I was quick to share whenever asked.

As the fates would have it, a road trip brought me within a few miles of Winona this past week. There was no way that I was going to pass up this opportunity, so despite being on a tight schedule, I made sure to reserve some time for a stroll down memory lane.

I arrived in Winona an hour or so early, so my lady and I napped in the Wal-Mart parking lot. At 0600hrs we sprang into action, brushed our teeth, slapped on some deodorant, and drove straight to Bloedow's.

I was nervous and excited. Twenty-three years is a long time. What if my memory of these delicious pastries was tainted with nostalgia? What if they had changed their recipe and ruined them?

As these questions raced through my mind we turned the corner and the smell of fresh baked bread and pastries assaulted my nostrils. Just like that, I was home again. Everything, down to the decor, was exactly as I remembered it.

We purchased our donuts and headed straight to the levee to watch the sunrise over the mighty Mississippi River. As I held my maple bacon long john in my hand all of my memories from Winona replayed in my head.

I could bore you with the details of that first bite, but you probably aren't interested in skies parting, angels descending, animals bowing, and such. Suffice it to say, that after 23 years away from Winona, I can confirm that Bloedow's does indeed still make the BEST donuts...

4 of us went here for the first time yesterday 4-23-22, we were excited and anticipating a great experience, it was a disappointment...... it was steady stream busy, felt quite rushed to make our choices and get out of the way. But the donuts and cookies were the biggest disappointment, they are WAY OVER HYPED in the reviews. All 4 people agreed they were nothing special, the maple in the maple bars is so weak in flavor... the weakest I've ever had in over my 5 decades, the cookies were just ok.... with the exception of the raisin oatmeal which were quite good. The raspberry filled donuts were also good, a 7 on a scale of 10. But I've had much better tasting donuts from Cub foods and Kwik Trip. I would NEVER make a special trip here to buy anything, but if I was is the close vicinity, I would stop in to buy some oatmeal raisin cookies. I'm sorry for the mostly negative review, I sure wasn't thinking it was going to turn out this way. But it is MY honest opinion...

As I was planning my trip to Winona, I heard from a number of folks that I needed to get doughnuts over at Bloedow's. I'm not even a real doughnut guy, but I made a note. We were on a college tour, and the Admissions folks over at St Mary's took great pride in announcing that they had picked up the local favorite Bloedow's and we should help ourselves. We even heard that they were voted Best in Minnesota. That's a pretty bold claim, I thought. As we ate at a number of restaurants around Winona, we'd see on the menu, "served on fresh Bloedow's buns.". Just had to check the place out! Arrived on a rainy Saturday morning to a line already out the door and the smell of fresh doughnuts emanating from the front door. Consumed my Maple Bacon long-John and I'm convinced. Best Doughnuts...