Sweetwater’s Donut Mill (Stadium Drive)
3333 Stadium DriveWhen we first moved to Kalamazoo seventeen years ago, one of the first places I wanted to try in the area was Sweetwater’s Donut Mill. It came to me as one of those legendary places and a defining institution of the Kalamazoo culinary scene.
I blogged about one of our first trips to Sweetwater’s back in 2010. I don’t think it was our first trip there because this particular trip was about paczki’s. I don’t know why I wouldn’t have blogged about it the first time we went but I did a lot of odd things back then.
We have stopped at the Stadium Drive location hundreds of times over the years to pick up donuts. There’s also the occasional stop at the Sprinkle Road location but not nearly as often. A little more rarely, I’ve stopped at the Battle Creek location and the Plainwell location which was meant to be a training kitchen for a franchise that never panned out.
This past Friday, I was working an early morning shift with some colleagues from Grand Rapids. They had to be down here really early in the morning and I was meeting them at the job site. I decided to be a nice guy and a good host and bring them donuts.
I stopped at the Sweetwater’s Donut Mill on Stadium Drive near Meadowview Drive in Kalamazoo’s Knollwood Neighborhood. The little donut shop has been there for decades. This is the original location that opened up in 1983. The building a small, standalone building that kind of looks out of place amongst the shopping centers that surround it. I had to stop in Friday night to get donuts because they stopped being a 24/7 operation during the pandemic and never went back to it. The shop is now open 5 AM to 8 PM. I had to meet my colleagues at a little after 4 AM so I couldn’t stop on my way there.
When you walk in the front door, you walk right in to a wall of donuts. There are usually several people behind the counter working on multiple orders at the same time. There is also a drive thru so someone is working that as well. It can be a kind of organized chaos if you’re there during the morning rush but this was closer to 6 PM at night so it wasn’t as crazy.
The donuts are stacked up on large trays and the great thing about Sweetwater’s is the variety. There are so many donuts to choose from. If it’s your first time in, it can be a little overwhelming but I’ve been there enough at this point, I know what my go-to’s are.
There is also a front cabinet with donut holes and some bigger donut options. They do have some long johns, which, if you’ve paid attention, are my favorite kind of donut but they’re not the same price as the circular donuts on the back wall…also, they didn’t have any vanilla long john’s this time.
There is a small seating are that takes up the rest of the space to the right when you walk in. Back when this place opened, I bet it was a hub of activity in the morning. You could come in, get a cup of coffee, and a donut. This was way before the proliferation of drive thru coffee shops. Now, they use a lot of this seating space to store the mountains of boxes they go through every day. There are still a few booths open though so you could still grab a cup of coffee and a donut then sit an enjoy it right away.
I had four colleagues coming down from Grand Rapids so I just went with half a dozen donuts. I obviously got one for myself and I figured any left over, I’d bring back home for the kids. The cost was a little over $8. I stuck to some pretty simple ones because no one likes biting in to a donut and being surprised.
I got two of my all-time favorite donuts, the Oreo. This donut is only available at the two Kalamazoo locations. It’s a yeast donut filled with a vanilla cream, dipping in a chocolate glaze and covered in crumbled cookie pieces. These donuts make such a mess but they are so good. I don’t think I’ve ordered anything else in at least the last ten years. I got two of those because I wanted one and I wanted to share one with someone else.
The next donut was a vanilla filled powdered sugar. This is another yeast donut and there are multiple filling options but again, no one likes a surprise and everyone likes vanilla so I stuck with that.
One of my kids’ favorite donuts is the New York Cheesecake so I got one of those too. This is another yeast donut with cream cheese filling and a strawberry frosting. This was the donut none of my colleagues picked so it actually came back home and by the time I got home from work the following day, it was gone so someone ate it.
The Dutch Crumb was the next donut in the box. This one is a white cake donut that is glazed then rolled in a blend of powdered sugar, cinnamon and crumb.
The final donut in my half dozen was the Snickers. This is another cake donut, this time chocolate, that is covered in caramel and peanuts. It has all of the flavors of a Snickers except the nougat.
I brought the donuts out at the end of our assignment for the day…which was around 7 AM and everyone went straight towards the box. A few of them had never had Sweetwater’s before while the ones that did were excited to see that classic white and red box on the table.
Sweetwater’s Donut Mill has been synonymous with Kalamazoo for so long. My parents, after all these years, still make a stop at Sweetwater’s almost every time they come up here. For a long time, my mom would bring a few dozen home and bring them to her work. That was always something her co-workers looked forward to.
For us, Sweetwater’s is always a treat. It can’t be an everyday breakfast….these donuts are really unhealthy….that’s why it’s such a treat whenever we do stop. It’s the one place we’ve gone back to over and over and over again and a place we will continue to go back to over and over and over again.
