Pink Box

Pink BoxStories (11)

Cake against yeast, the refugee who sold a thousand shops a pink box, why the egg rolls are there.

Essays (7)

Cake against raised

cake vs yeast, the two doughs

Two doughs, one kettle, and an argument every shop settles twice a day.

The Donut King

Ted Ngoy's story

How one man's shop in La Habra became a trade for a community, and what happened to the man.

The franchise that vanished

Spudnut

Between 1940 and 1968 a Salt Lake City potato-flour company put more than three hundred shops on American streets. The company is gone. Some of the shops are not.

The price of a dozen

what donuts cost

A price without its date is not a price. This page holds the dated ones this project can actually cite, which is not many, and says plainly what is missing.

The sign outlives the owner

reading a donut shop sign

Donut shop signs are older than the businesses behind them, which makes them unreliable evidence and excellent evidence at the same time.

What counts as a mom-and-pop

the independence line

This site is about independent donut shops, which means it needs a rule for what that is. The rule used here: a shop is independent when no company owns it.

Why the egg rolls

the second menu, donuts and Chinese food

A donut shop that also sells egg rolls, or breakfast burritos, or bacon egg and cheese, or kolaches, is not being eccentric. It is doing arithmetic out loud.

Maps explained (3)

Bar or Long John

what to call it, the word map

One rectangular raised donut, at least five names, and a map of the country hiding inside a bakery case.

The counter

what else is in the case

What a donut shop sells besides donuts, region by region, and what this project can show evidence for.

Where the shops actually are

donuts per capita, the density map

Donut shops are not spread evenly, and the places with the most of them are not the places with the most famous ones.

Where it came from (1)

Where all of this came from

sources, resources

What this site is built from, what each thing is licensed under, and what it does not cover.

Pass it on