The 6th Annual Butler Family Las Vegas Donut Hike

My, how we’ve grown.

I don’t just mean in scope, as in its sixth year the Butler Family Donut Hike moves to a new city and its third state, trying to find the best Las Vegas donuts. And I’m not just talking about our tastes, as these days my mom scoffs at Dunkin Donuts, ruined by years of searching out the best artisan pastries. Nor am I talking about the number in our donut hunting party, which at one point this year swelled to eight, the most who have ever taken part in a Butler Family Donut Hike.

I’m not even talking about waists, with us shifting our belts throughout the day to try to find the most comfortable way for them to constrict us.

No, I’m talking purely age and height. Because we went in Vegas to celebrate my ‘little’ brother’s wedding. On the first Donut Hike he was a shy boy of 18 or 19, not nearly suitable enough to be sent out into the world for marriage. Now he’s a confident young man, proud of himself that he managed to convince a very capable young woman of settling down with him. And look, I know he had his own bachelor party planned, but I’m pretty sure eating half a dozen donuts two days before his wedding was how he really wanted to celebrate anyway.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Annual Butler Family Donut Hike, the rules are simple. We walk (or drive, in these years of rule-bending) to different donut locations. We order 2-3 donuts, including a plain glazed as a standardized element across all donut shops, and then we cut them up so everyone on the jury can try a bite. At the end of the hike, we vote on which was our favorite donut of the day. Each jury member has their own criteria of what makes it their favorite donut — mine is which one I would want to eat again, given the choice of all of them.

The jury this year was one of the biggest to date. My parents and myself, my aunt, and my brother and his soon-to-be-wife. This would be as good of an induction into the family as any! We borrowed my sister’s fifteen passenger van (she elected not to drag her five small children on a sugar-laden driving tour of Las Vegas the day after Christmas) and sped trundled off on our donut adventure.

Donut Bar

With a Pop-tart donut and an Oreo-stuffed donut, the Donut Bar seemed like the place to make all my sweet-tooth dreams come true.  For the less indulgent, there were also more normal flavors, apple fritters and strawberry shortcake packed with fresh strawberries. The Donut Bar also likes a touch of the whimsical in its decoration – Baby Yoda is so cute he got made into a donut. The place even slings up donut French toast and donut grilled cheese (though breakfast sandwiches have never been part of the Donut Hike).

However, the curse of donut hiking during the holidays hit us — as it was the day after Christmas, the Donut Bar was closed. A donut for another time.

District Donuts

We couldn’t be too sad for too long because our next stop was District Donuts, located in the food court of the Cosmopolitan Hotel. I visited the OG location in New Orleans years ago and since then have spent much of my time sadly staring at their Instagram, wondering when I’ll be able to make it back. In addition to their decadent donuts, District also serves amazing-smelling breakfast sandwiches. But I wasn’t even allowed to get a cinnamon roll (overruled by the jury as it was ‘not a donut’), so we stuck to a lineup of classic glazed, eggnog filled and Christmas cookie butter brudder.

It’s hard not to fall in love with plush, rich eggnog cream, and I personally loved the gingersnap cookie on top of the cookie butter brudder. Was I already secretly biased because I had been to the District in New Orleans? Possibly, but I figured we would be hard-pressed to find a better donut. The rest of the jury maintained a better sense of impartiality, and off we went to our next stop.

But first, the airport! Two members of the wedding party conveniently arrived in the middle of the Donut Hike, so we swung by to pick them up in our fifteen passenger van. We asked if they would like us to drop them off at their accommodation or if they would prefer to join us on the Donut Hike, at which they feigned naivety. But one has to suspect they did know something of the Donut Hike. Why else plan to arrive in the middle of it?

“Do you want something real to eat first?” the bride asked her maid of honor.

“There isn’t really time for that,” I mumbled as the rest of the family bundled them into the car and started off again.

Coco Donuts

Coco Donuts came up on the radar when I found out about its Dough’sant specialty. Despite never having had an original Cronut from Dominique Ansel’s bakery (I know, how has that never made it onto a Donut Hike itinerary?), I once had the loveliest croissant-donut hybrid in Montreal and have reminisced ever since. Rarely have I found a pastry to match it, but that won’t stop me from trying.

Coco Donuts has this gorgeous kilometer long glass display case, donuts organized in nice little rows. From the massive lineup, we chose a classic glazed, cinnamon crunch, buttermilk cake, cream cheese, and the maple glazed Dough’sant.

While the classic donuts were fine examples of tasty donuts, we were left disappointed by the Dough’sant – our own fault, I realized afterwards. When doing a Donut Hike, the donuts must be cut into small pieces and shared. Sawing the Dough’sant into eight tiny pieces destroyed its lovely flaky texture, especially as we had to push through the maple glaze on top.  

I was tempted to suggest trying again and righting our wrong, but we were only halfway through the day. Other donuts called us onwards.

Glaze Doughnuts

Glaze Doughnuts was a flippant addition to the list. I’m not even sure how I found out about it in the first place. It was one of the furthest destinations, put at the end of the list in case we had to axe it. Small and unassuming, it’s tucked in a strip mall behind a Dairy Queen.

When we walked in, I could see how lucky we got.

While my aunt was busy explaining the Donut Hike to the man behind the counter, I took a quick scan of the plaques on the wall. After two years of snagging third prize in the Best of Las Vegas donut category, they finally won third place in 2019. The third stop of every Donut Hike is usually where we begin to lose speed, but this year any thoughts of sugar overload dissipated as soon as we looked at the display case. We got a glazed bowtie, a raspberry jam (filled to order!), a maple bacon, and the Fruity Pebbles crusted.

Every bite was perfect – The raspberry jam was bright, the maple bacon was the perfect sweet and salty and smoky balance, the Fruity Pebbles was, as one judge said, “Like a strawberry… mmmmmmm…” It was still too soon to officially vote on a winner, but the unofficial stamp of approval came when we bought a box to take back to my sister and her family,

(In full disclosure: Glaze wouldn’t let us pay for our first round of donuts after hearing about our Donut Hike ritual. We did pay for the box to take home. Free donuts have no sway our final votes, as this is a quirky family tradition and not a real competition.)

Real Donuts, Inc.

By now, some of our guest judges were starting to falter. Claiming the need for ‘real food’ and saying there were ‘things to do’ for the wedding, my brother’s fiancé and their friends were dropped off. Only my parents, my aunt, my brother, and I carried on to the final donut destination.

Real Donuts, Inc, isn’t pulling any snazzy Las Vegas punches. Not into the glamour and shine of the strip, this humble spot also advertises sub sandwiches, soda, ice cream, and cigarettes on its sign outside. I had my doubts as we walked in that they had any donuts at all. But inside were dozens and dozens of donuts, massive ones too, and even though our eyes were glazing over with our caloric intake, we managed to pick out a plain glazed, a maple glazed old fashioned, and an apple-filled giant bear claw.  

I think our final destination always suffers from the sheer weight of sugar and oil that has come before it, but none of us were super impressed by the donuts. We did think the plain glazed was solid. However, we were rolling in towards the end of the afternoon, when the best were bound to be gone and the ones left weren’t super fresh. It seems like the kind of place to go for a real get-yourself-going breakfast donut, and I would be willing to give it another try.

Every donut deserves a second chance.

The Verdict on Las Vegas Donuts

To absolutely no one’s surprise, the 2019 Best of Las Vegas donut winner, Glaze Doughnuts, was also the runaway Annual Butler Family Donut Hike winner! Each donut got a vote from a different person, but Glaze won hands down. The only split vote was me, voting for both the raspberry filled at Glaze Doughnuts and the eggnog at District Donuts, but I invited this whole thing so I’m allowed to do what I want.

I know there are other donuts in Las Vegas, including the OG Vegas donut shop Pinkbox and the popular Carl’s Donuts, but we only had so much time and so high of a sugar tolerance. With my little brother and his wife settling down in there, this may not be the last Las Vegas edition of the Butler Family Donut Hike. 

PS. I would just like to say thank you to the people who sent me Instagram messages during our Donut Hike this year, saying how much you also love this tradition. I may go on a lot of adventures, but this silly little tradition is one of my favorites, and I’m glad other people like it too! You can check out our Las Vegas Donut Hike on my Instagram highlights and try to catch when I ‘mis’-name us the Donut family.

Previous New York City Donut Hikes include…

The 1st Annual Donut Hike in New York City, featuring Dun-Well Donuts, Peter Pan Bakery, the Doughnut Plant, and Dough Doughnuts.

The 2nd New York City Donut Hike write-up is still one of my favorites (back in 2015, when hangry was still a relatively new word).  We kept it more to downtown donuts, including the Donut Pub, the Doughnuttery in Chelsea Market, Cinnamon Snail, Underwest Donuts, and Orwasher’s Bakery.

The 3rd Donut Hike was, due to time and travel restrictions, a drive across Tennessee. However, I never got around to writing about it. Since it was the day after Christmas, many of the planned stops were closed or had limited selection, not enough jam to fill a post.

After much negotiating with my mom (who argued that some of my initial picks were not ‘real donut places’), the 4th Donut Hike featured new stops and old favourites, including Daily Provisions, Mah-Ze-Dahr Bakery, Dough Doughnuts, and the Cinnamon Snail at Pennsy Food Hall.

The 5th Donut Hike took us to look for Queens donuts. We gorged ourselves at the heavenly Comfortland, Sugar & Water, and D-Lite Café before tapping out.