It's almost 10 a.m., and for the first Sunday in months, Wow! Donuts and Drips is open. Customers mill around the long curved counter, marveling at the glass displays and the artfully decorated donuts, from classic cinnamon rolls, to a Black Forest donut with cream, sprinkles, and a cherry on top.
For Wow! Donuts and Drip's loyal regulars, Labor Day weekend was a long time coming. After weeks of being temporarily closed, Wow! Donuts and Drips has reopened again. To celebrate, they debuted their phenomenal new cronut, the Ooh La La, offering half-priced coffee all month long and all healthcare workers are invited to enjoy one complimentary coffee with proof of ID.
The Sim family opened Wow! Donuts and Drips because the concept of donuts and coffee in the morning is so ubiquitous and yet it had remained the same for years.
“It’s so common it’s taken for granted,” David Sim says.
They wanted to modernize the concept of donuts and coffee. They opened in 2017, and Wow! Donuts and Drips soon became popular for its wildly decorated donuts. Over the Rainbow has a signature blue icing and a rainbow Airhead candy stripe. The Pina Colada comes with a festive drink umbrella sticking out of the cream topping. The Honey Lavender has lilac frosting petals, a collop of white chocolate ganache, and a sprinkling of rose petals.
All their creams, fillings, and flavors are made in house. For example, their chocolate eclair is glazed with housemade chocolate sauce, and filled with vanilla bean custard instead of the typical Bavarian cream. Their menu changes seasonally, is made without preservatives, and everything is done in-house. David says their goal was to offer a higher level of craftsmanship than most people would expect from a donut shop.
The same philosophy applies to their coffee. Originally, the store was going to be called Wow! Donuts. But, David says, it didn’t take long to realize that just as much as the shop was about donuts, it was also about coffee.
“We are part of the third wave of coffee,” he explains. The third wave of coffee is a movement led by both consumers and manufacturers in recent years to consume, enjoy, and appreciate high-quality coffee. It’s dedicated to specialty, artisan coffee, sourced from the best roasters who ensure their farmers are treated fairly and the beans are harvested responsibly.
“People when they think about black coffee, think about office coffee,” Sim says. “The third wave coffee is about showcasing the way different beans from different regions have different flavors.”
While East Plano has artisan coffee like 1481 Coffee House, XO Coffee Company, and Mudleaf Coffee, and even more abound in McKinney, Frisco, and Dallas, West Plano is a craft coffee desert. Other than an outpost of Ascension Coffee found deep inside the Shops at Willowbend, Wow! Donuts and Drips is the only independent, locally-owned specialty coffee shop of its kind.
Though the Sim family closed shop temporarily for their own health and safety, they are very excited to reopen. Their loan took months to reach them. “Everyone wants to go back to normal,” he says. “Everyone is suffering.” They squeezed as tight as they could and even paid employee salaries out of their personal account so they could stay afloat. Reopening is a relief.
So far, they have enjoyed a quiet, steady stream of customers. Even though the dining room isn’t open, sometimes people linger in the parking lot like an impromptu tailgate, enjoying coffee and donuts and company.
But the main draw for customers is their newest product, the Ooh La La.
Cronuts originated at Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York, where people wait in line hours for them. A half-donut, half-croissant pastry, cronuts are notoriously finicky to create. However, the tedious, three-day process results in over a hundred crunchy yet fluffy layers of butter and dough and a dessert that revolutionized the donut world.
David admits during the pandemic, they got bored. With plenty of time and flour onhand, they tried their hand at cronuts.
“Now we understand why it takes three days,” he jokes. Developing the dish was a learning curve for his father, the head baker, and it resulted in a lot of trial and error. If one step goes wrong, the pastry will fall apart. “The moment of truth is when you drop it in the fryer,” he says. It’s only then, at the very end, that a baker knows if they’ve done it right. But it’s worth the work.
“If done correctly, it’s worthy of that line in New York City,” he promises.
The Ooh La La comes in two varieties: traditional, and tiramisu. A classic cronut is beloved for its crisp exterior evenly coated in sugar, and the tiramisu version is a Wow! Donuts specialty. It gets its flavor from its whipped, creamy topping, a single espresso bean, and chocolate glaze, a nontraditional twist on two desserts that stays true to both.
Too often, desserts that are built to be Instagrammable sacrifice flavor for looks. But Wow! Donuts and Drips proves that it doesn't have to be so; food can have both flash and substance.
Because their staff size is still small, with the reopening, cronuts are limited and likely to be sold out within an hour. While he expects they will always be quick to sell, David says that as their opening ramps up, soon they will be able to make more.
“I’ll be honest, I have a good feeling [about reopening],” David says. “People want fun in their lives.”
Wow! Donuts and Drips
Hours: Every day | 7 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Where: 6509 W. Park Blvd. #420, Plano
Ordering:
- Wow! Donuts and Drips online portal and delivery platforms went live this weekend.
- The Ooh La La has a limit of two per person, due to its short supply, must be ordered in store.
- For large orders, please order through the website 72 hours in advance.
More: wowdonutsanddrips.com
