Fancy Neighborhood Gets Regular Doughnut Shop

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River Oaks Donuts opened yesterday on a stretch of Westheimer that, for the purposes of situating it for its target audience, can best be defined as a short walk from St. John's School or halfway between River Oaks Baptist and ultra-exclusive preschool The House at Pooh Corner. CultureMap reported yesterday that the shop is something of a vanity project for billionaires Mindy and Jeff Hildebrand, who simply decided that River Oaks lacked a sufficiently close doughnut shop and purchased a nearby strip center "to provide the neighborhood with donuts."

Bucking the growing trend of specialty doughnut shops across the country, River Oaks Donuts is, according to an unofficial tasting panel convened this morning by Eater Houston, serving fairly standard, if hand-rolled, commercial doughnuts. The panel did award high marks for the filled doughnut holes. While Houston continues to wait for a home-grown version of Gourdough's, at least homerooms throughout the neighborhood will be well supplied with snacks come the fall.

· Billionaires open a new drive-thru donut shop in River Oaks: Who needs Shipley's or Dunkin? [CultureMap]
· The 23 Hottest Doughnut Shops in America Right Now [-EN-]