Donut Know What To Do Without You: Dan’s Variety Bakery Reopens

By ERIN LARISON

The Kokomo Post Staff

It’s hard to know which was louder, the grumble of bellies or the buzz of streetlights at 12:59 a.m. Tuesday as a line of donut diehards snaked from the door of a legendary Kokomo bakery. 

The recent closure of Dan’s Variety Bakery has left a hole in the late-night eating scene in Kokomo since early August. The mainstay on Hoffer Street posted a social media message on Aug. 10 citing a closure due to a family emergency, and the shop has remained closed for weeks. It reopened, just like it has for so many years, at 1 a.m. Tuesday morning.

“I don’t know what the problem was, but I’ve been following them on Facebook,” said Bob East, a Kokomo man whose age, he politely told me, was none of my business. “I seen they were going to open at 1 a.m. and I’m like I’m going down there.”

East wasn’t the only one ready and waiting for the return of Dan’s Donuts. 

TKP Photos | Erin Larison

The line snakes out the door as patrons wait for Dan’s Variety Bakery to reopen.

At 1 a.m. sharp, the staff flipped on the lights and the familiar sweet smell wafted down the road. The well-worn red and white checked floors awaited guests and the nondescript display case was packed with dozens and dozens of fresh donuts. Cake donuts, apple fritters, tiger tails and longjohns. You name it, and they had it Tuesday morning. 

Bob East said he didn’t bother going to sleep before heading to get fresh, hot donuts from Dan’s.

For many in line that morning, Dan’s Variety Bakery seems to hold a certain nostalgia: late nights, friendship and a little sugar rush.  

Andrew Gwizdala, 21, drove from Peru to be among the first for the tasty treats. He and his high school friend group used to make the trip often.

“Me coming here kind of brings back memories of them,” he said, pausing to smile. “And it’s super good.”

Audrey Stawsma, 19, was first in line with a group of friends, two of whom were newbies to Dan’s. 

“It’s getting donuts at 1 a.m. Who doesn’t want that?” Strawsma said, adding that her friends have cruised by the spot a few times recently hoping it was open.  “... We’ve been trying to come for the last week. We keep dropping by.”

“I have really high hopes,” said Nick Charlesworth, 19, who was on his very first Dan’s 1 a.m. run. “They have been hyping it up.” 

Georgia’s Hannah Hersch said she has waited in the blistering cold for hours, just for a reminder of home.

Chantel Hoffman and Bea Fuqua, both made the trek from Cicero to grab a fresh box of donuts. 

“It’s the dough. It’s like it’s fluffy and it stays like that, and the donuts on a stick? There’s nothing like them,” said Hoffman.

Hannah Hersch was visiting home from Georgia, where she now lives and said it’s a must-do every time she’s in town. She said she’s waited two hours in -10 degree weather before, and it’s worth it every time. 

“Whenever we come to Kokomo, we have to get ‘Dirty Dan’s’ donuts,” she said.

So what makes these donuts so superior to, say, a grocery store variety? 

“I’d say the freshness,” said Brennen Maple, who has worked at Dan’s for the last two years. “We don’t really put that much preservatives in it. You think of a Krispy Kreme —”

“They’re junk!” interjects a mid-60s man in overalls, stepping up to the counter.

“Respectfully, yes,” finishes Maple, with a laugh. 

TKP Photo | AJ Edwards

“Well worth the wait,” says Nick Charlesworth.

Maple and Parker McKinley filled customer orders on the reopening morning, and said there just isn’t anything in the world like a fresh, just made donut from Dan’s. It’s probably why the shop sometimes sells 800 or 900 dozen in a single night. 

Churches order them. Truck drivers call on their way from Indianapolis, McKinley said, begging the staff to save them a precious few — because the diehards know what Cicero’s Hoffman knows.

“If you wait until the morning, they are all gone,” Hoffman said, knowingly.

And Charlesworth, the first time Dan’s taster who was among the first in line Tuesday, agreed. He may have summed up the spirit of reopening morning the best: “Well worth the wait.”