Drive-Thru Donut: The Donut Hole
La Puente, California
The Donut Hole was built in 1968, its two ends fashioned to look like immense, 26-foot-wide doughnuts. It took three designers -- John Tindall, Ed McCreany, and Jesse Hood -- to come up with this one-of-a-kind architectural brainstorm.
The beauty of The Donut Hole is that you drive through not just one hole, but two. The double-dunker portal connects the outside world -- a typical store-jammed suburbia -- with a doughnut-scented tunnel sheltering the kitchen and its latest confections, arrayed on trays along interior windows, with a take-out order portal.
The building is open, selling doughnuts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You'd think that this much fried dough would tax its digestive system -- and yet despite the creeping stream of stop-and-go traffic, The Donut Hole seems unfazed as vehicles are steadily gulped in and unceremoniously pooted out.
We recommend buying an assortment bag of plain, glazed, and jelly-filled. And try to have patience if you find yourself stuck behind a wedding party on the driveway (named Do-Nut Blvd); newlyweds like to drive through the Hole for good luck.