HEALDSBURG, CA — Before dawn, a massive mixer whirs to life, orchestrating flour, dough, and anticipation so that each buttermilk and cake donut emerges hot and ready as morning breaks.
Outside, construction trucks pull up in the dark, and a foreman steps in to claim two dozen donuts before the first coffee cools.
In this small Sonoma County town better known for wine lists and Michelin stars, donuts spark their own kind of loyalty—and lately, a quiet rivalry. Although, in a town named the friendliest small town in California, the rivalry is very quiet. It’s more of a grumble among residents’ about traffic on the streets and in the town plaza than competition between the businesses.
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Within a two-minute walk from each other, the two shops serve different crowds, budgets, and philosophies, from pre-dawn dozens for construction crews to made-to-order treats for tourists and date nights.
They also offer sharply different visions of the American doughnut. One leans on tradition, volume, and routine. The other builds its reputation on novelty, customization, and the spectacle of frying each order fresh.
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To stir debate between individuals, ask them which is the best donut — glazed, jelly, cream, maple frosted, fritters, apple crullers, and old-fashioned.
To really get a conversation going, open two donut stores.
The answer at Flakey Cream Do-Nuts & Coffee Shop begins long before sunrise. Tucked into the Mitchell Plaza alongside a dry cleaner and barber shop, the Flakey Cream runs on a steady rhythm of mixing, rising, frying, and serving.
The baker is there nights, his radio playing in the background, rolling smooth balls of dough that are cut and moulded into the next day’s fill. He smiles and waves through the window.
By early morning, regulars file in: construction workers ordering by the dozen, retirees settling into familiar seats, and locals trading opinions about politics and the day’s news over coffee.
Owner Nikki Khlok took over the business in 2015 after immigrating from Cambodia, part of a broader wave of Cambodian entrepreneurs who built livelihoods in California’s donut trade.
She kept the recipes largely intact—handmade dough, night bakers, and the same cycle repeated daily—but reshaped the business around it.
She added a hearty lunch menu—salads, breakfast burritos, chicken-fried steak—and, during the pandemic, set up outdoor tables and plants so customers could gather when indoor spaces closed.
Through it all, the early-morning rush never faded. “They’re ugly, but people like them,” Khlok said of her apple fritters, lifting one as proof.
“I like them,” she said as a man walked in for his lunch break. He took a stool at the counter facing the kitchen and ordered a chicken Ceasar salad.
Flakey Cream’s identity rests on consistency and scale. Customers don’t wait long. Shelves stay stocked. And when a crew needs two dozen donuts at 6 a.m., Flakey Cream delivers.
Dutch Door
A few blocks away on the town Plaza, behind a bright orange door, Dutch Door Donuts flips that model on its head.
There are no racks of ready-made donuts. No towers of glazed rings waiting under fluorescent lights. Instead, customers peer into a case the size of a big birdhouse displaying a handful of flavors, then wait as each order is fried to order.
The process takes about three minutes. The result arrives hot, irregularly shaped. “It’s different from an average donut shop,” said Aziah Garvey, one of the employees who rotates between the counter and the fryer.
Associates like Eduardo Dolores, above, take orders at the register and frying Dutch Door doughnuts in the Healdsburg shop.
Dutch Door built its reputation in Carmel before expanding to Healdsburg, drawing attention for premium pricing—often $4.50 to $5 per donut—and a rotating menu of seasonal and experimental flavors. Vanilla bean glaze might share space with rosemary garlic butter or pistachio cardamom.
Employees develop new combinations, compete across locations, and treat the menu as a living experiment. The dough ferments longer. The oil—rice-based—keeps the texture light. Even the experience shifts: customers watch their order come together, choosing with their eyes as much as their taste.
Tourists, after-school kids, and couples on dates drift in from nearby restaurants like Spoonbar and SingleThread, where dinner tabs quickly climb into the high hundreds or more.
Two women from the East Bay slipped in with shopping bags in hand. “I’m the donut fan,” Robin Crowder from Walnut Creek said. “I’m not a donut fan, she is,” said Melinda Camp, gesturing to Crowder. But the part-time Orinda, part-time St. Helena resident said she knew the brand from its Central Coast roots.
Robin Crowder from Walnut Creek samples a Dutch Door doughnut in Healdsburg, CA.
The donuts themselves defy convention—“wiggly, squiggly-shaped,” as Sonoma Magazine magazine put it—favoring flavor over appearance.
Back at Flakey Cream, Khlok shrugs at the comparison. The shops, she said, serve different needs. Few tourists would ever see the shop. “They’re just a different kind of doughnut,” she said. “You don’t buy two dozen for your guys from there.”
That divide—between dozens and singles, routine and novelty, value and experience—maps neatly onto Healdsburg itself. A town where vineyard workers and construction crews share streets with wine tourists and fine-dining regulars now has donut shops to match.
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Dining and Cooking