9 real shops, ranked by the Chicago Specials Score — from a South Side bakery running since 1911 to a River North shop baked inside an actual former bank vault.
Chicago Specials → Chicago's Best → Donuts
Neighborhood kids kept saying "dat donut shop" instead of "that donut shop." The name stuck.
9 contenders, ranked by the Chicago Specials Score
Chicago's donut tradition runs oldest on the South Side. Dat Donut has run out of 8251 S. Cottage Grove Ave. in Chatham since 1994, owned by Darryl and Andrea Townson — the space itself used to be a Leon's Barbeque, one of the real South Side rib joints behind this site's own BBQ history. The name is the simpler story: neighborhood kids kept saying "dat donut shop" instead of "that donut shop," and it stuck.
A few miles south in Roseland, Old Fashioned Donuts has been frying at 11248 S. Michigan Ave. since 1973 — pushing 50 years of the same glazed and apple-fritter lineup, run the same unfussy way the whole time. Humboldt Park's Roeser's Bakery goes back even further: John Charles Roeser, a German immigrant, started it in 1911, and it's stayed in his family ever since — his great-grandson, also named John Charles Roeser, runs it today. The bakery's own customer base shifted from Western and Eastern European immigrants to largely Puerto Rican regulars over the last several decades, tracking the same real demographic history as nearby Paseo Boricua.
The newer wave of Chicago donuts came from a different direction entirely. In 2011, restaurateur Brendan Sodikoff — the same name behind Au Cheval and Small Cheval, both on this site's own Burgers list — opened Doughnut Vault inside an actual decommissioned bank vault on Franklin Street. The shop makes small batches, closes the moment they're gone (often by early afternoon), and was named the best doughnut in America by Food & Wine the year after it opened.
Do-Rite Donuts, in River North, runs on a similar small-batch, sell-out model, pairing its donuts with a fried chicken menu that's become just as much of a draw. Between the decades-old South Side counters and the line-out-the-door downtown shops, this list runs the city's whole donut range in one place.
The suburban entries — Gurnee Donuts, Country Donuts in Elgin, Morris Bakery — round out the list the same way they round out the actual map: real neighborhood shops, no national chain in sight.
200+ spots, 15 categories — jump straight to another ranking.
Sources: ABC7 Chicago on Old Fashioned Donuts and Roeser’s Bakery, Hoodline on Dat Donut’s Chatham address, and PCMA/Food & Wine coverage of Doughnut Vault’s 2011 opening.
Brendan Sodikoff — the same restaurateur behind Au Cheval and Small Cheval — opened Doughnut Vault in 2011 inside an actual former bank vault. Here's their real page.
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