Duck Donuts

Visiting the Outer Banks ("OBX") in North Carolina is practically a religion for people in the mid-Atlantic region. People drive for hours to spend a glorious week (or more if they are lucky) enjoying great beaches and water sports options. Growing up in Northern Virginia, my first trip to OBX was when I was 9 years old. I have since been dozens of times, and associate it with many great times in my life, including several trips with my own kids in recent years.

One of the highlights of a trip to OBX is getting warm, delicious cake donuts from Duck Donuts. Duck Donuts is a local chain based in OBX. It is named for its original location in Duck, North Carolina, which happens to be where my family often rented vacation homes growing up. Duck Donuts is a no-frills operation that focuses on doing one thing very well,making delicious, fresh cake donuts on the premises.

For years I always said that Duck Donuts would be very successful if they opened up a location in the Northern Virginia area. Given all of the people in this area to visit the OBX every summer, and all of the elementary school aged children you see running around here wearing Duck Donuts T-shirts, opening a location up here seemed like a goldmine opportunity.

 My prediction ended up coming true, Duck Donuts has opened several locations here in the area including one in Herndon, which is about 20 minutes away from where I live in Ashburn. About once a month, I make a Saturday morning trip to Duck Donuts in Herndon to grab a dozen donuts for my family. Sometimes I go on and other times I bring one of my daughters with me.

 As soon as you walk in the door your senses are assaulted with the smell of delicious donuts cooking up. A number of flavor options are available keep things fairly simple. My favorite flavor is lemon. My wife likes maple which is also pretty good. I actually don't like their chocolate very much, although my kids do love the chocolate with rainbow sprinkles variety. My oldest daughter likes peanut butter which I'm also not very crazy about. The bottom line is that if you like cake donuts you will be hard-pressed to find better ones than those served up a Duck Donuts. Recommendation Level: High