Gourmet Doughnut Shop Opens in San Rafael's West End

Some of the people of San Rafael have proven they can be aggressively fanatical about gourmet doughnuts.

For weeks, signs announcing the opening of Johnny Doughnuts, located at 1617 Fourth Street, triggered countless eager comments on the Johnny Doughnuts Facebook page with a similar message: “Are you open yet?!” 

After making several local appearances throughout the summer with the Johnny Doughnuts food truck, including at San Rafael High School, a Pacifics’ baseball game, the West End Culture Crawl and selling doughnuts at the Thursday night farmers market downtown, the store opened to much local fanfare on Saturday, Aug. 31. 

Since, they have been regularly selling out of most of the flavors every day, Johnny Doughnuts co-owner and San Rafael resident Craig Blum said. Hear Blum speak about Johnny Doughnuts in the above video.

Earlier this summer, the Johnny Doughnuts food truck was also spotted all over the Bay Area, including multiple visits to the Apple headquarters in Cupertino for private parties. You can use the Johnny Doughnuts Facebook page to stay up to date about where the food truck can be found. 

Blum, who owns the company along with San Francisco resident Jeremy Moran, said they spent more than a year perfecting the flavors and recipes for their doughnuts, including unique flavors such as salted chocolate caramel or Lemon Mascarpone Bismarcks. In the above video, Blum also talks about the secret to making a delicious, gourmet doughnut. 

Blum has been in the food industry for more than 15 years, which included starting the pizza dough company “John Dough,” which sold pizza dough to several Bay Area restaurants and eventually became a nationally distributed pizza dough company, which Blum sold years ago.  

The shop will opens at 7 a.m. every day of the week but Tuesday. They regularly close at 2 p.m., but Blum suggests those wanting to get a doughnut fix check their Facebook page before heading over the shop to find out if anything gets sold out.