Tasty Daylight Donuts – Open When You Need Them

  • Sunday, September 30, 2012
  • Willie Mae
Tasty's Blueberry and Cream Cheese Donut with French Roast Coffee
Tasty's Blueberry and Cream Cheese Donut with French Roast Coffee

It wasn’t that I planned on having a donut today at noon but when I spied a little place called Figgy’s, I parked my car and walked toward it only to find them closed. Surely, I would find something else opened on the block as I walked up Chestnut Street. Even Innside Restaurant was closed. The whole purpose of having such a great city as Chattanooga is to get to enjoy it on the weekend when the parking meters don’t count!

Why these places close up on a whim of their own; I will never understand but I am convinced that from a businessman’s point of view with the overhead costs, that staying open when it isn’t a “peak time” is not economical. Downtown is where most people visit when coming to Chattanooga. So how do we get these places to stay open? We as a city, support them! Many businesses downtown would like to stay open longer. Either they are only open during breakfast or lunch on weekdays, or some restaurants don’t open until five and only on certain days. Whatever the case may be, I was glad to see Tasty Daylight Donuts in my path so I could sit a spell and grab a bite to eat on a Saturday at lunch time.

I had no idea what Tasty’s was, whether it is a franchise or owned locally but I believed the location on Chestnut Street was new. It was “free coffee day” at other donut places so Tasty’s offered the same. There were not a lot of tables to sit down at – either it is because they had just opened this location or because they expect to have more people pick up boxes of donuts and not really eat in.

I had asked if they offered more than donuts and the gentleman behind the counter said it was just donuts and pastries – but I saw a picture on the wall of a sausage rolled up into dough. He was busy with a customer who had a small boy that was helping himself to the jar of fountain pens on the counter, so I didn’t ask about that. The father was unmindful to what his son was doing as he went ahead picking out several donuts for his family.

There were several different varieties of donuts to choose from. I knew I just wanted one donut with a cup of coffee; I had picked out what I wanted in my mind while I waited on him to finish up with his other customer.

After the young lad had learned how to make his way behind the counter where the owner was, his father was ready to leave and looked for his son. The owner was very kind and gracious as he waited for the father to collect the curious boy.

I chose the blueberry donut with cream cheese icing. It looked really good and, although I pictured that cream cheese slathered on my hips – I knew it would be worth it. I had already been walking this morning maybe that would help ease my guilt. I asked him about his coffee; I saw an espresso machine. I had always wanted to try espresso but have never had the guts and, he didn’t tell me much about it other than the two types of coffee he suggested. I chose the French Roast.

After sitting down with my donut and free coffee – which may be why he steered me in that direction since everyone was coming in for free coffee, I saw tourist-y type people come in. They struck up a conversation with the owner about his place. I was all the way across the room so I could not pick up the conversation as I strained to hear for myself. What I was able to gather was, it is a franchise of Daylight Donuts and “Tastys” is the local franchise who uses Daylight as a supplier, but they offer a bit more than the franchise.

The donut was very good and I ate every bite. I only drank half of the coffee but it was good too! Now that I am on Facebook and learning my way around on that I looked them up to find out more about them. Apparently they had two other locations and were voted Chattanooga’s  Best this year. I believe they were closing their Dalton location and they have one on Jenkins Road too.  

Now I am not sure about the hours for the downtown location but they listed at the Jenkin’s location, being opened most of the day from 6:a.m. – 8:p.m. I was pleased to see them opened downtown while so many of the other places were closed. I enjoyed my scrumptious donut and coffee and I also liked supporting a local business during a time when most weren’t open. Y’all go visit them – they’re open and they donut close their doors just because it isn’t a peak time!  

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