Donut Fest

lotta vendors giving away a huge array of donuts & fritters (not to mention giving away full donuts and selling even more if you wanted them), lotta generous pours of coffees, and a lot of donut places I’d never heard of. Standouts were Chemshaw from Crown Point IN with their crazy pulled pork glazed donut and Pleasant House from Chicago’s South Side with a really gorge apple fritter.
Signage and ticketing need to be better worked out – we inadvertently got herded to the wrong end of the whole deal and started giving wrong-​numbered tickets to wrong vendors, but nobody seemed to mind – nobody mentioned it until we got to the last vendor we checked out.

I don’t write very many reviews on Unilocal,but I felt compelled to write this one and it’s going to be long. so I’ll give you the short of it first.
Pros: Good coffee venders, cool concept
Cons: Value, unclear directions, small portion sizes, different donut venders for each session
Our first (and last) donut fest ’16 was a bust for us. Two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, we ended up having to buy 2^nd Session VIP tickets ($ 50+ each).
Initially, we were excited to travel from the burbs into the city to try various donuts from places we’ve had and places we haven’t. The location, chop shop back room, was very nice however much small than I anticipated. What you got with VIP Entry was an hour early entrance, a fest mug, and a ‘goodie bag’ of coupons to various venders that were at the fest. Once inside, I thought to myself, when general admission gets here there will be no room for anyone to stand.
Con #1: We were given a set of tickets (1 – 9) and were immediately kind of bummed as we had thought it was more along the lines of unlimited tasting, however not the end of the world. What the fest coordinators failed to tell us, they may have told other parts of the line, was that each of the 9 ticket numbers coordinated with the 9 donut venders at our session. We failed to also make that connection and after giving ticket #1 to table #8 successfully, we were told by table #1 that they could only accept the ticket marked 1. So they wouldn’t even serve you without the correct ticket.
Con #2: only 9 donut venders at 2^nd session for a 3 – 4 hour fest? What they failed to accurately portray was that each session had different donut venders. That is ridiculous. Many of the ‘popular’ donut bakeries were in the first session and the 2^nd session had lesser, we’ll know bakeries and or just restaurants that just made donuts. So if you were looking forward to trying donuts from a particular place, you better have picked the right session. And if the size of the venue was the issue for not having more venders, then why wasn’t that considered in picking a larger location. That being said, of the venders at our session, there were some great ones.
Con #3: Tasting proportions. Already upset that there were far less donut venders at our session that we hoped for, and many of the ones we wanted to try not at our session, we find that the donuts portion sizes were ¼th of a donut. Two venders gave full-​size, however still small, donuts. One vender made a fresh donut for you right there, however it was the size of a quarter. Some venders didn’t even give you what is considered a donut by its definition. Many of the venders brought racks of full sized donuts, but if you wanted a full sized one. guess what. you had to pay for it. I had to cough up an additional $ 2 for a donut I wanted to try that wasn’t available for sample.
Pro #1: Coffee venders. You also received 3 drink tickets that were good for use with the 5 – 6 coffee venders they had at the event. All were local roasters from what I saw and many had tables with various merch for sale as well. Drink sizes were on the small size, think Dixie cup. However we met one company there that didn’t care about taking our drink tickets and just wanted people to sample their product which was awesome.
Pro #2: The concept for the event was there. For those who love donuts, this event was something we were all looking forward to. However, I don’t believe it was executed well which was surprising considering this was not the first donut fest.
Overall, I felt that Donut Fest 2016 was a complete disappointment. The value for VIP tickets was completely lost. Did it matter much that we got in an hour early? No, because after 45 minutes after the event started we were done with zero tasting tickets left and nothing else really to explore there, so we left. Tasting sizes were small and the event didn’t seem to be clear on how they wanted you to go about getting samples. Even at $ 35 for general admission, I can’t see the value. We spent $ 100 for two tickets. we could have driven around the city, bought multiple full sized donuts from every vender that was at BOTH sessions, and still have left over cash. I believe there was some sort of charity associated with this event, however it needs to be equal with what you’re getting out of it as well. We were happy we at least tried the event, but won’t be doing another. I’m even pressed to say that I would research who put on the event and not do another one by them.

So, donut fest 2016 is now a meh memory. I hope my review will spare a few people their hard earned cash for next year. I was at the second VIP showing and was really unimpressed — especially after paying $ 58 bucks a ticket (with tax, honey). The only 2 full sized donuts offered were the oil slicked Stans donut and that gloopy chocolate passion fruit thing-​sorry can’t remember the vendors name. The other 6 vendors offered bite sized cut up donut pieces. Like nasty samples from Whole foods. One vendor was, The Longman Eagle (I place, I love). However, their donut, which wasn’t even a donut – only a modest donut hole. Bastards! I was really impressed with GBD and bought a couple of Full sized donuts to take home. Oh, yeah– except for the aforementioned vendors. if you wanted a full size donut –you had to buy it. It was like some weird in-​app, add on purchase. The coffee vendors were the highlight and actually saved the event for me – the offerings at Dark Matter and Metropolis were tasty, fun and the staff was really informative. I did appreciate the coupons and will use them. I along with everyone else, would have appreciated water inside the event space. So make sure you bring a bottle. Otherwise you have to go the bar to get some.
FYI: Friends who attended the first VIP grouping seemed to get full size donuts and had more vendors. Bastards!

Based on Donut Fest 2014, I would return… which I did this year. But based on Donut Fest 2015, I would not return for the following reasons.
1) For the number of tickets sold, the venue is extremely cramped, esp in the winter month of January when everyone is either walking around in his/​her thick parka trying to balance donut samples with coffee samples with taking pictures and gabbing with friends. Yes, there is a coat check, but that helps minimally with the crowdedness. Be prepared to sweat from all the body heat, phat donuts, and the sugar sweats!
2) There weren’t as many vendors this year, 11 vs. last year’s 14 or 15.
3) The $ 40 ticket is debatably pricey. With it, you get a donut sample from all the vendors, 3 mini coffee samples, a hot chocolate sample, and photo booth fun.
My fave sample of 2015 was Scafuri’s tiramisu donut. Delish!
A couple parting tips for future visitors:
1) Bring tupperware for any samples you aren’t able to finish!
2) Stay hydrated!
3) Consider arriving an hour into your session to avoid the really big crowds, but you are then trusting that all vendors are prepared with the appropriate sample quantities… which they should be.

This took place in a large industrial looking room located in The 1^st Ward of the Chop Shop. I prepared fully for this event by severely limiting my intake the day prior :-)
Atmosphere: industrial. Lively. DJ spinning songs (happiest looking guy I’ve seen in a long time. Must love his job). They also had a photo booth (fun) and had a slide show of donuts and people projected on a large screen.
Service: Well organized. Everyone working there was all smiles, inflator and having fun (except the big bouncer dude at the door… naturally he had to look serious but he was professional).
Food: For those of us who have a weakness for a good donut this was like «Crack Fest». Honestly there was not a bad or even mediocre donut to be had. The participating shops brought their «A» game with only a couple exceptions. Stan’s brought only a very basic fried glazed donut which to me was sort of like phoning it in given their capabilities. The notables in my book were Scafuri Bakery (with the Tiramisu Bombini), West Town Bakery (with a warm croissant donut filled with creamy goodness), and the Goddess and the Grocer (with red velvet balls stuffed with a lemony creamy filling) and Stan’s (with the apple fritters). There were so many other good ones that I feel bad only calling out a few.
My only suggestions/​wishes are to to offer a few baked donuts (separate category?) and to have a bigger venue with more tables as it was quite unwieldy to navigate while carrying a plate let alone eating in the shoulder to shoulder crowd.
I LOVE donuts and had this opportunity by the kindness and love of my daughter :-)
I hope her and I can be back for another round next year and make Homer proud

I came to this event with the daughter and also ran into Unilocal friend Yvonne there. At $ 40 pp, it’s a pricy event for trying quarter-​sized samples from 11 donut shops, 3 coffee shops (I enjoyed Big Shoulders in particular), and 1 hot chocolate offering (Rick Bayless’ XOCO). This was apparently the second annual event for Donut Fest. All of the donuts were delectable, though I wouldn’t personally try to eat all 11 during the event unless you want a sugar headache. Scafuri Bakery (I never previously heard of) had a particularly nice cream filled offering. I ate maybe 4 and brownbagged the rest in a self-​brought plastic container. You’re entitled to doing so as you get a ticket for each of the 11 vendors as part of the purchase price. It’s a nice foodie outing in one respect (the sampling and the high quality of offerings), but on the other, it was way too crowded (as Yvonne mentioned) and awkward (actually impossible) to have any donuts while also having coffee, and there was very little high table space. Think a big busy Unilocal event and then double the people density. It was interesting to see this event space (apparently called 1^st Ward) at the back of a chic butcher shop (Chop Shop). It would have been a lot more comfortable with either double the space, or half the people. One possible future tip is that one can arrive at roughly the halfway point and enjoy the eats with only half the crowd as that’s what happened during the last 45 minutes of the 2.5 hour event (we were at the 11:00am-1:30pm event), and there were plenty of donuts left, but the coffee supply did start drying up at the end. If one doesn’t have enough from the donut samplings, one can buy full sized offerings at what I think were regular prices. Overall, an OK outing particularly from the novelty factor but Donut Fest is a one time event for me.

Donut Fest is in the back room of Chop Shop where you can walk around a crowded room to sample about a dozen different fabulous donuts made by local shops. There are two different times: early morning and mid day. We went to the second time which was $ 40 per ticket which was $ 5 more expensive than the earlier time.
The process was of purchasing tickets, entering, and wandering around was very well organized. Many volunteers were cheerfully checking our tickets and handing out swag bags. A DJ played lively music at a respectable volume and a slide show of Instagram and photobooth pictures from the event was projected onto a large screen.
We were also given clearly organized raffle-​like tickets. Each of the donuts tickets had a number with them that cooresponded with each bakery. Each bakery had one or two donuts to pick up and some of them had other flavors to buy.
We were also given other tickets for hot chocolate, tea, and coffee. It was nice to balance all the sweets with warm drinks. If we wanted, we could wander into the restaurant and have some food or booze.
There was some room for improvement:
— It was too crowded. It would have been nice to have a third time to spread out the people some more.
— Some bakeries provided boxes for collecting donuts but most people struggled with tiny disposable plates that only held two donuts at once.