The Upper East Side’s doughnut supply is about to get a serious upgrade. A homegrown New York bakery that’s been frying since the mid-1990s, and that’s widely credited with launching the city’s artisanal doughnut craze in the first place, has a neighborhood storefront on the way.
Advertisement
Doughnut Plant is opening at 1285 First Avenue (between 69th and 70th streets). East Side Feed learned of the plan through a reader tip and confirmed it directly with the company, which expects to open in roughly two months. It’ll be the brand’s first shop on the Upper East Side.The company started in 1994, when founder Mark Isreal began making doughnuts from his grandfather’s recipe in a Lower East Side basement and delivering them to neighborhood coffee shops by bicycle. That operation turned into a full storefront on Grand Street, and from there into a small chain with locations on the Lower East Side, Grand Central Terminal, Prospect Heights, Williamsburg and Long Island City. The Long Island City space doubles as the company’s bakery and headquarters, where everything is made by hand each day and then delivered out to the shops.
Doughnut Plant has claimed a long list of firsts over the years, including the crème brûlée doughnut, the square-filled doughnut, the Doughflower and the vegan Sourdoughnut. The full menu runs through yeast-raised and cake doughnuts alongside vegan options, gluten-free cake doughnuts and rotating seasonal flavors, plus small-batch coffee, espresso drinks, teas and chai. Every doughnut is made without eggs, including the cake doughnuts and cream fillings, which makes the entire lineup vegetarian. All of it is certified Kosher by the International Kosher Council.
The First Avenue shop won’t have the neighborhood to itself for long. Randy’s Donuts, the Los Angeles chain known for the giant rooftop doughnut on its Inglewood flagship, is preparing to open at 1183 Second Ave. between East 62nd and East 63rd streets, its second Manhattan location after the Greenwich Village shop that debuted last December.
Have a news tip? Send it to us here!
