Dutch Girl Donuts will let Detroiters inside its second location this Friday, June 5, for a sneak peek from 8 to 10 a.m. at 2820 E. Grand Boulevard. Each visitor walks out with two free donuts while supplies last. Pre-packed dozens are on sale for $20 during the event. The date lines up with National Donut Day, observed every year on the first Friday in June.
The new shop sits in a 1928 building between Oakland Avenue and I-75 in New Center, behind an Art Deco facade that originally housed the office of the Maurice Fox Ford dealership. For more than four decades it has been home to Howrani Studios, the family photography business run by Ara Howrani. The studio keeps its original space. Dutch Girl is taking the main storefront and a portion of the building that owner Paddy Lynch plans to use for private events.
"This is a celebration of Detroit, tradition, and the incredible support our customers have shown us over the years," Lynch said in a statement. "We couldn't imagine a better day to show off the new space than National Donut Day."
The Woodward shop has been a Detroit fixture since 1947. It went dark in 2021 after the death of its longtime owner. Lynch bought the business and the building from the Timmer family in November 2023 and reopened the original in May 2024, with the recipes intact and several former staff back behind the counter. Among them is Jon Timmer, son of the late owners, who is back making the donuts. Donuts sold at the Grand Boulevard space will be baked at the Woodward bakery, which runs 24 hours a day from Tuesday morning at 6 through Sunday evening at 6 and closes only on Mondays.
Lynch is a third-generation funeral director who has spent the last several years putting historic Detroit buildings back into use. He also runs The Schvitz, the longtime bathhouse on Oakland Avenue, and Dakota Inn Rathskeller, the German bar on John R just north of Six Mile. Ara Howrani was the person who first walked Lynch into The Schvitz. That introduction is what brought him back to the East Grand Boulevard building when it came time to find space for a second donut shop.
For Friday, the offer is simple. Walk into the lobby, see the work in progress, take two free donuts, and buy a dozen for twenty dollars to take home.
National Donut Day was started in 1938 by the Salvation Army in Chicago to honor the "Donut Lassies" who served fried dough to American soldiers in France during the First World War. For Dutch Girl, which has spent nearly eight decades on Woodward, the day is a fair excuse to throw the doors open on a second chapter.
