Do-Rite Donuts | The Loop, Chicago

It's hard to imagine the tiny storefront at 50 W. Randolph Street being anything other than a doughnut shop.

In reality, the wood-walled, brightly lit space has been a doughnut shop less than two weeks, with the tenant, Do-Rite Donuts, being the newest contribution to a nationwide fried-dough frenzy.

Owners Francis Brennan and Jeff Mahin have quite the history with flour and yeast. Mahin ran a pizza restaurant; Brennan worked with New York pastry great François Payard and ran the bread program at L20.

Now they're making nearly a dozen styles of doughnuts per day, frying every hour on the hour from 6:30 to 11 a.m. There are buttermilk old-fashioned cake doughnuts ($1.85) and sugar-topped rectangles bursting with raspberry jelly ($2.25). The chocolate-glazed ($2.50) are draped in Valrhona chocolate; gluten-free come dressed in cinnamon and sugar.

Bacon-topped, maple-glazed doughnuts have already drawn a cult following, but we're partial to the coconut custard. The least sweet of the half-dozen we tried, it's coated with dried and toasted coconut flakes and packed with coconut-milk cream.

Far from tiring of the sugary rounds, this new venture has us raring to dough.

Do-Rite Donuts, 50 W. Randolph St.; 312-488-2483