click to enlarge
-
The apple fritter at John's Space Age Donut Shop is the first donut you should order.
There was a hole in my donut repertoire. I understand that now. And if Dunkin' Donuts had never opened, I'm not sure I would have realized that I'm about a decade too late in visiting John's Space Age Donut Shop (8124 Floyd Street).
Thankfully, not much changes at the classic shop in Overland Park -- it opened in 1967 -- so I can only regret the time I have not spent eating its fried deliciousness.
This Saturday morning just before 8 a.m. I stepped inside John's for the first time. I found a pastry case with diner stools on either side and a menu board that's still hand-written. To the right, a half-dozen grown men were chatting and eating donuts off of white paper plates, school lunch milk boxes in their right hands. The father and daughter who had walked in before sat down to the left of the counter. She was still in her pajama pants, which of course, had a repeating graphic of donuts.
-
The apple fritter at John's Space Age Donut Shop is the first donut you should order.
Donuts are 70 cents (75 cents to go) and donut holes are 25 cents. First, I try the apple fritter. It's moist and light with a little thread of cinnamon and a yeasty finish. Despite a promise to just take one bite, the fritter barely makes it home in the car.
-
John's glazed donut is iced fluffiness.
Next is the glazed donut, always a benchmark. It tells me how sweet a shop's donuts will be and whether I should have ordered the cake donut instead. John's has a thick glaze, similar to Fluffy Fresh. The crust gave way to a thick and chewy interior that gave my tastebuds some time to recover.
-
The double chocolate cake donut is a game-ender.
For its part, the chocolate cake donut made me feel nostalgic (it was like going back to
Condon's Donuts in Wells, Maine, the donut shop that remains the standard from my childhood family vacations). The cake is less sweet, slightly bready. It's a cocoa donut, more than a chocolate donut, and it begs for a glass of cold milk or iced coffee.
If you park in back and walk around the side, you can watch through a bank of windows as the donuts are made. John's is closed on Mondays, but opens every other day at 6 a.m. You can always call first, 913-381-0980, to make sure they're not sold out.
So to John's Space Age Donut Shop, please consider this my apology. Can I have another apple fritter now?
