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É«É«À² doesn’t lack for doughnuts now. There are plenty of non-chain spots across the GTA offering something for everyone — vegan, gluten-free, mochi, cronuts, Lotus Biscoff one day, Dubai Chocolate the next. But for those who were around during the city’s recession-driven food scene of the late aughts, Glory Hole Doughnuts was part of the early cohort of artisan doughnut shops that changed the way the city saw doughnuts.

It arrived at the same time chefs and cooks were leaving (or were laid off from) fine dining restaurants to open their own casual spots with a concise concept, be it charcuterie or porchetta sandwiches. The same thing was happening in the pastry world. A then 26-year-old De Boinod figured that if she was pulling long hours in someone else’s kitchen, she should do it for her own business. 

“At the time I had been into the idea of artisanal methods and dedicating your career to doing one thing really well,” De Boinod, now 40, recalls. “There were artisan donut shops coming up from the states like Voodoo Donuts that piqued my interest.”

Inspired by the pinup and  esthetic that was popular at the time, De Boinod and her partner came up with a retro doughnut business with the name and tagline: Glory Hole Doughnuts: What Creams Are Made Of. 

The not-so-subtle double entendre earned more headlines than the donuts themselves (she also got angry phone calls from the U.S.), but the flavours were just as bold. These were yeasted donuts that leaned into savoury, boozy, or nostalgic flavours: beer and brown butter; buttered toast; lemon meringue; maple bacon (peak bacon-on-everything era); fried chicken and waffles; coconut cream pie; and an Elvis-inspired donut with peanut butter frosting, banana chips, chopped nuts, bacon, and toasted marshmallow.

She started out of a commercial kitchen in Kensington Market before opening her first storefront in Parkdale in 2012.

I remember as a food writer being hesitant on whether to recommend a doughnut shop that was charging $3 for a doughnut (laughs in inflation), but Glory Hole was part of a cohort of local artisan bakers making bigger, tastier and more inventive doughnuts such as Paulette’s Original Donuts And Chicken, Dough By Rachelle and for a time, Calgary’s having a É«É«À² location on College Street.

As the years went by, the trend of outrageous doughnuts swung back to more classic flavours like chocolate dip and rainbow sprinkles. When De Boinod moved her shop to Gerrard Street East in 2018, she says cinnamon sugar was her bestseller. The cost of running a bakery has also drastically increased, so charging $4 for a bagel-sized donut with five different toppings, each requiring its own methods of frying, chopping and roasting was no longer feasible. The pandemic exasperated things as De Boinod posted videos on her Instagram page, explaining that the fixed costs of running a food business: rent, insurance, equipment maintenance along with plummeting catering orders made the business unsustainable. Earlier this year, she decided it was time to hang up her apron.

While she’s skeptical on whether small businesses like hers can thrive in É«É«À² in 2025, or if big chains will finally take over, she still believes the city has a great food scene and there are still little places holding on to the culinary vision she had all those years ago. 

“There are traditionalist donut places that are still artisanal, but maybe there is more machinery involved or the flavours are simpler,” she says. “It’s not going to be what I did. When I finished my last donut roll, I was like, ‘I never have to wake at 2am again.’”