Voodoo Doughnuts Where Eccentric Meets Macabre – Universal City Walk’s own taste of Portland
With the doors propped open at 7:30 am sharp, a waft of freshly glazed doughnuts filled the air of Universal’s City Walk as Voodoo Doughnuts officially opened their doors to their line of customers waiting for their handcrafted desserts. Inside, customers drowned out the hipster music and chatted excitedly among themselves about which doughnut to choose, and if they would pair it with the store’s “Stumptown Coffee.”
Inside the store resembled a G-rated macabre version of Alice and Wonderland. The walls exploded bright pink, with golden gothic chandlers hung from the ceiling, and wooden coffins and skulls adorning the walls. In the back, a window showed the metal trays that held dozens of the displayed creations. The atmosphere was chaotic as employees ran back and forth from the kitchen to the counter yelling names and numbers over the ever-growing crowd. To the left, baristas ground coffee beans for the various lattes, espressos and coffee items ordered in rounds by excited customers. The hiss of hot water escaped the taps, and “Order number 23!” was yelled across the room. A young man trotted to the counter, threw in a few coins as a tip and grabbed his coffee seconds before, “Order 24” was called.
Pink “To Go” boxes, with intricate artistic designs – a Mayan inspired train ride, with a baker as a conductor took the doughnuts through an elaborate and comical journey, while the systematic instructions detailed the journey at the bottom—lined the right wall behind the counter; and as I inched forward focused on the freshly crafted doughnuts that brought the menu to life on a turning three-tiered display.
The first level held all the cereal doughnuts:
Captain my Captain Doughnut: An original doughnut with vanilla glaze and Captain Crunch topping.
The Loop Doughnut: An original doughnut topped with Fruit Loops.
Triple Chocolate Penetration Doughnut: A chocolate doughnut, topped with chocolate glaze and Cocoa Puffs.
The second level held interesting doughnuts:
Dirt Doughnut Doughnut: Doughnut with vanilla frosting and Oreo
Marshall Mathers Doughnut: A cake doughnut with vanilla frosting and mini M&M’s
Voodoo Dolls: Doughnut resembling a characterized figure filled with raspberry jelly topped with chocolate frosting and a pretzel stake.
Bacon Maple Bar Doughnut: Maple doughnut with a piece of bacon on top.
Diablos Rex Doughnut: A chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting, read sprinkles, vanilla pentagram, and chocolate chips in the middle.
The third level held all the variations of crullers and old-fashioned doughnuts. Chocolate, maple, and original glazed.
Voodoo Doughnuts were founded in 2003 by Tres Shannon and Cat Daddy in Portland, Oregon, and have since expanded to its 6th location in California. The Universal City Walk location had been set to open since Halloween 2016, but has only now officially opened with set hours. The owners constantly try new combinations, and coming all the way from Oregon, Colorado, Texas, and Taiwan, “We wanted to bring some fun to the Walk,” an employee laughed as he was handing a customer his “Voodoo Doll” doughnut. This specific one was chocolate glazed, with white eyes, an overly exaggerated gaping red mouth lined with white teeth, and a pretzel stick inserted into its arm like a pin. “Who decorates all of them?” I asked, and the employee simply stated, “Depends who has opening shift.” The doughnuts take hours to prepare and with hundreds of pounds of sugar and flour lined behind the scenes, bakers began mixing, baking, and designing each individual doughnut hours before opening. “Each one [doughnut] you see, has been individually iced so none look alike. It’s hard sometimes, but we get to pick what the faces look like, so that makes it fun!”
Barely 9 pm, and the line wrapped around the black stanchions as bright sunlight peaked over the hazy Wednesday morning. People of all nationalities, ethnicities and walks of life stood together to consume bite off the arm of their Instagram worthy doughnut. Parents and children, tourists, and LA residents all shared laughs looking at each other’s creations, relishing in a shared curiosity of voodoo. Unlike traditional voodoo, the doughnut shop pulls heavily on the Hollywood version of voodoo: the pentagon, skulls, and voodoo dolls. While this is not an accurate representation of the practice, the eccentric little hang-out allows everyone to let loose, buy a shirt, and create memories.