Seattle's Best Food Tours

Hot Mini Donuts in a Paper Bag: Where Our Seattle Donut Tour Ends Up

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Spoiler, since it's in the title: the last donuts come out of the fryer at Daily Dozen Doughnut Co in Pike Place Market and go straight into a paper bag, still hot. Everything before that is the walk to get there.

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Bookshelves, a monorail and the Spheres

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We start at Top Pot Doughnuts' flagship cafe on 5th Avenue in Belltown. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves wrap the room, and the Seattle Monorail slides past the windows outside. Grab a drink, head upstairs, and dig in while your guide sets up the morning.

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Next is Doce Donut Co, brioche donuts in Latin American flavors. On Mondays and Tuesdays the stop switches to warm malasadas from Marination instead, a very happy Hawaiian detour. A few blocks on, the glass domes of the Amazon Spheres rise straight out of the sidewalk. If there's time you can peek into the Understory, or grab a free banana from the stand out front. Yes, really. Free bananas.

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Down Virginia Street to the Market

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The hill tips you toward the water. On Virginia Street, Dahlia Bakery fries its Dahlia donuts to order and serves them with seasonal preserves and cream. Then you're inside Pike Place Market: fish flying over the counter, flower stalls, Post Alley, and the gum wall if you're brave or curious. Then the paper bag. The tour wraps up inside the Market, so you can keep exploring after the last bite.

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A drizzly morning is just a Seattle morning. This walking tour leans on indoor seating and covered market arcades, and nobody here owns an umbrella anyway. Shops follow the seasons hard, too, so expect pumpkin old fashioneds and caramel apple fritters in fall, cherry blossom flavors in spring and berry fritters when summer comes around.

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Alaska cruise passengers join us all the time, usually the day before or after sailing. Pike Place is a pretty good last stop before a week at sea.

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The holiday version

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From Black Friday through December, the Seattle Downtown Donut Tour hands off to the Seattle Holiday Donut Tour. Same food tour route, plus holiday flavors, a little festive lore, and a stop for hot chocolate. It runs a bit longer to fit that in. Worth it.