Hometown Date: Dan's Variety Bakery

It seems like lately, our date nights have looked a lot like home renovations with a side of turkey burgers or trying a new grocery store after a skinny caramel macchiato run. Such is the life of those in the middle of relocating and clean eating, right?

One of my hopes for our move to Kokomo was that we might soak up more of the local color than we did in Marion. Don't get me wrong. Marion was not void of local color. But maybe I had just lived there so many years that I failed to see what was right in front of me. Maybe that's the danger of living in one place for a while?

I wanted to do better after our move. I wanted to make traditions here, try new things, learn what a town has to offer its people.

But, of course...moving. That took a lot of time. Settling took even longer.

So this past weekend was our first shot at intentionally trying out the local color.

And when you schedule a date for the middle of the night, you look pitiful and your pictures lack pretty much all creativity and photographic wonder, but none of that matters as much as memory making.

Dan's Variety Bakery is better known around here as Dirty Dan's. {That makes you want to go, right?} I found a bogus Facebook page under the name Dirty Dan's, and a comment someone left indicated it first received that nickname because it used to be located in a part of town that was a bit less than desirable. But it's official name is Dan's Variety Bakery, and the donuts served there have created quite the reputation.

Ryan had been there before and told me he knew I would love it. This little bakery sits tucked away in an entirely residential neighborhood {which, according to some Facebook rant I happened upon several weeks ago, can be a bit of a trial for the neighbors} and does keep very odd hours. Specifically, it opens at one in the morning and stays open until noon, but rumor has it they're often sold out by eight or nine.

I've also heard through the grapevine that people start lining up well before one in the morning {perhaps leading to the aforementioned Facebook rant} just to get fresh, hot donuts. According to my scouting on review sites, it appears people will drive significant from other cities in the middle of the night just to get these donuts. They're that good.

It's an unassuming little place. A plain building among a bunch of houses, and the inside isn't all Pinteresty cute and charming. But none of that matters when you're looking at this:

Ryan said if we were going to get our hopes up for a treat like donuts, we shouldn't risk waiting until our version of morning to show up. So we set the alarm for the middle of the night, stumbled out of bed, and crawled in the car to drive to Dan's.

Whew! That is one rough picture.

Sneaking out in the middle of the night to go for donuts was a fun and different kind of date, and by the time we got to Dan's, the rumored lines had long since gone. There were a couple of old guys hanging out, eating donuts, drinking coffee, and solving the world's problems long before dawn even thought about making an appearance. I could see in the back, the huge counters of dough and employees stamping out fresh donuts.

We chose our samples and crawled back in the car to drive home. Ryan said it would definitely be best to eat one ON the way home, so we did.

Yeah, those are definitely not clean eating, but they were delicious eating, and I could tell after the first bite what all the fuss was about. They weren't dry, yet they weren't doughy. They didn't have that I'm-eating-pure-lard taste that some donuts have. They were soft, flavorful, and delicious.

Dan's won my vote. It may not be a Pinterest board atmosphere, and the neighbors may grow weary of the middle-of-the-night lines, but it's a treasure already in my book. I told Ryan we should schedule out random points in the year and make a habit of Dan's dates. Too good to miss!