You may not have heard of Yellow Light Donuts, but if you drive past it on East Jefferson, you will definitely notice it. The recently built building Yellow Light operates out of is a rarity amongst the plethora of pre-war facades in the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood.  

I was enticed by the aesthetic gray, white and yellow color scheme of the building as I drove into the drive through. Throughout my ordering experience, I was pleasantly surprised with how kind the woman who helped me was, as the fast paced environment of a drive through often results in poor service. 

As I was leaving the lot to turn back onto Jefferson, I stopped to take a look at the coffee slushie and several donuts I had just bought. I marveled at how carefully crafted everything seemed to be and then raced home to try everything.

Not being able to decide which of the three donuts to try first, I went in alphabetical order.

The brown butter plantain donut was incredible. The saltiness from the plantain and the sweetness from the brown butter made the flavor outstanding. The texture was perfect as well: crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. The plain, old-fashioned donut was equally delicious. I tend to rate places based on their basics, so from this donut alone, I would say that Yellow Light is a must go-to. 

The vanilla bean donut was great too. It had the same texture that I loved in both of the other donuts. However, the flavor was not quite as out of this world. It was still good — don’t get me wrong — but just not as good as the others. 

Finally, the coffee slushie was fantastic and by far my favorite item. I liked the balance of flavor and how it wasn’t overpoweringly sweet. It clearly had an ingredient in it to make it taste more mellow than regular black coffee, but nothing that destroyed its flavor. Although everything I tried was excellent, the coffee slushie was my favorite because it is something that I can see myself ordering frequently.

Overall, I was very impressed by Yellow Light and plan on ditching my Starbucks app for their treats instead.