The months-long wait is over for Sundays’ doughnuts.
The new pastry venture from Dooby’s owner Phil Han opened a new stall at Cross Street Market in Federal Hill this morning. Sundays will serve a rotating array of brioche doughnuts – the flavors for this week’s soft opening include French toast, eggnog and raspberry almond – along with breakfast and fried chicken sandwiches, salads, fries and basic drinks like coffee, tea and sodas.
Sundays had originally planned to open in Hampden during the spring, but plans fell through, according to Han. Cross Street Market became an option after Caves Valley Partners returned to the negotiating table and finally agreed to pursue a $6.5 million renovation of the staple South Baltimore market. The developer recently opened four renovated stalls amid the ongoing construction, which is set to be complete in mid-2019.
“We were looking for a space that we could launch relatively quickly without having to do a full-on build-out,” Han said Wednesday morning. “The other challenge was finding a neighborhood where we felt like there was a good strong sense of community and a demand for what we’re trying to accomplish.”
Another key change from the original plan is the mastermind behind Sundays’ creative doughnut recipes. While Courtney Fix, formerly of Hampden’s since-departed B. Doughnut, was originally working with Han on the venture, he said she’s now pursuing other plans. Des Hardy, the only Dooby’s employee who Han said has been with him in Mount Vernon “since literally day one,” will be running Sundays instead.
Sundays joins Baltimore’s doughnut scene after a year of many shifts. In Hampden, B. Doughnut departed its space on Chestnut Avenue for Northern Virginia last December. Center Cut Doughnuts took over the storefront in January, then promptly announced its closure in November, just 10 months later. Full Circle, another doughnut purveyor, is set to take over the space this month.
Down closer to the harbor, Diablo Doughnuts is in the process of leaving behind its two-year home on S. Broadway in Fells Point for a larger space just around the corner from Cross Street Market in Federal Hill.
“I think Baltimore’s still a very young doughnut town,” Han said. “There’s still so much to explore, and if people give doughnuts a shot and keep tasting then that they’ll see these aren’t the same donuts they grew up with.”
While Sundays’ current menu may sound elaborate to some, Han said the flavors are on the conservative side. “We’ll look to expand on that quite a bit” as the audience grows, he said.
For its soft opening week, Sundays will be serving customers from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. today, Thursday and Sunday, and 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Normal hours starting next week will be 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.
Click here to stay on top of the new shop’s rotating menu.
