Glaze and Grind opened, and Dick Cheney died. There’s no causal connection there, but the two facts stand in poetic tension. How can we talk donuts in a time like this? Still, we must persist.
The first thing is the name. The Yale Daily News called it “Glaze and Grind,” and everyone I know calls it “Glaze and Grind,” except for one woefully confused friend who somehow portmanteaued themselves into “Glaze Crazy.” But the name of Donut Crazy’s successor remains up for debate. The signs now attached to the store and the flyers circulated before the opening prefer the name “Glaze | Grind.” The neon signs inside the store and the text printed on every cup opt for the economical “Glaze Grind.” If this is a stylistic choice, it’s a bad one. The “and” is necessary: “Glaze Grind” sounds like a really hard skate trick or a dance move that regrettably ruled the early aughts. Thankfully, the website is at least glazeandgrind.com. And at the bottom of every page is a little “© Glaze and Grind,” suggesting that the official name is indeed Glaze and Grind. Or maybe not. There appears to be no “Glaze and Grind” registered in the databases of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Copyright Office, and the Office of the Secretary of State of Connecticut. Even more perplexing, in the business registry database for Connecticut, “Glaze and Grind” or “Glaze | Grind” or “Glaze Grind” do not appear as legal or trade names. Still lingering in the database, though, like a fringe friend at a party that ended an hour ago, is an entry for Donut Crazy LLC, bearing the stigmata “OVERDUE.”
Glaze and Grind may not exist on paper, but nonetheless, it is here in brick and mortar. Glaze and Grind has traded the decadent fake ivy for dark faux wood. Inside, the once dark walls have been painted white. The red neon sign with the hearty motto, “Let’s Eat Donuts”—the “o” of course a donut with a bite—has been replaced by another sign, somewhat incoherent: “Came here for the plot, ended with a twist.” The words burn in halogen white, open books fluttering around their glow. I await the twist, but there appear to be no surprises here, only a mounting feeling of déjà-vu. Two luxuriant brown leather couches sit by the entryway. A coffee table stands between them at the perfect height and distance that any reach for napkins or utensils requires full body exertion, denying the comfort the couches invite. The counter tops are thick slabs of pristine white marble; the solid wood and steel stools of the late Donut Crazy file alongside, now in navy. On the serving counter, the taps glimmer and the espresso machine flaunts its shining armor. The rack of donuts stands above the whole scene. At this afternoon hour, all that are left are the stragglers, the donuts too decadent, ridiculous, and expensive for the morning crowd: Fruity Pebbles, Samoa, Cookies and Cream (or perhaps Cookies | Cream).
I snag a Fruity Pebbles donut and a cappuccino. The donut is a Donut Crazy donut: the glaze is indulgently sweet and the dough below soft, moist, and airy. I scarf it down in two minutes and immediately feel like I’ve been shot in the stomach. The coffee is a Donut Crazy coffee. I burn my tongue on the first sip. The rest of the cappuccino is bland, either from nerve damage on my taste buds or too much milk.
Turns out the cappuccino is the secret evil cappuccino that makes you paranoid. I start noticing things. Above the booths once hung two Handsome Dans in fancy clothing—quick digital art jobs that are endemic on Yale’s Campus and the surrounding area. They were paired with a picture of Salvador Dali. These are gone, probably relegated to some warehouse awaiting a second wind in New Haven’s first Applebee’s. Now, two AI-generated Dans look on with sad eyes. One holds a plate of donuts, the other a plate of bagels. The donut-bearer wears a blue sweatshirt with a not-Yale Y. A donut levitates in front of his mouth, silencing him. He cannot take a bite, cannot do anything except stare blankly—no appetite, no joy, as inanimate as the food he holds. His companion suffers the same fate.
Above a counter by the entrance hangs an AI Einstein with ill-fitting donut glasses and, below him, the chemical formula for caffeine. It doesn’t matter that Einstein was a physicist, not a chemist, and never taught at Yale. Nothing matters here. Even the donut glasses don’t matter: by the bathroom, there is another Einstein—no donuts, no caffeine, just him. To either side of our bespectacled Einstein hang the sketches and notes of the geniuses that concocted this place—either them or someone rapidly succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning or, the probable culprit, ChatGPT. On display, we have a coffee cup and a bagel. Thank fuck they’ve labeled them “coffee cup” and “bagel” with big arrows running between the words and the drawing. Not every label can be a winner, though: “sprinkle star” points to the white lid of a coffee cup, while “white lid” points to the presumed sprinkle star. So close! You’re doing great buddy! Another sketch considers the design of the cup. At this early stage, the cup still said “Glaze and Grind”! ChatGPT summarizes the cup’s appeal for us: large logo, wow factor, easy to read. Of course this cup doesn’t resemble the current cup whatsoever. It was too good for this world. As I consider these sketches, I notice the outline of a logo, but it’s not the Glaze and Grind logo. It’s for a place called Goldberg’s, established in 1949, not 2025.
Goldberg’s, as it turns out, is a New York bagelry franchise presently run by Marc Goldberg, one of the masterminds behind Glaze and Grind. Except for the donuts, many menu items have been borrowed from Goldberg’s. This explains why the menu is far more bagel-heavy than Donut Crazy ever was. And it further explains why Glaze and Grind can have a sandwich named “Our ‘Famous’ Hobo” despite having only been open for a week. Goldberg’s has a good menu! Looking at their website, this stuff sounds yummy! But they’ve managed to bring only a nerfed version to Glaze and Grind and taint it with AI names. Why are two separate items both called “Sweet Sting”? Why is the chicken caesar called “Cease the Day”? I think it’s supposed to be a pun on Caesar but reads ominous. Why must my day cease? Does the sandwich put you to sleep? Is there Ambien in the sandwich? Does the sandwich just kill you?
Eating a donut from Glaze and Grind is a pleasant experience. Being inside Glaze and Grind is not. You get the sense you are standing inside an imitation of a store, that at any moment the pastries will turn out to be plastic and the walls made of cardboard. And, indeed, the store is all appearance: this place is a Goldberg’s spin-off built off the bones of Donut Crazy pretending to be this third business. It would genuinely feel like a swindle if the appearance didn’t crack the moment you step through the door. The choice of art is distinctly shallow. This is not simply because so much of it is machine generated. The decor choices jettison back and forth between rote and irrational. Of course we have the Handsome Dans: it seems mandatory for businesses within a certain radius of Yale. You must have a picture of Handsome Dan or there will be consequences. In this way, among others, Handsome Dan is a Mao-like figure. Meanwhile, the two Albert Einsteins, the massive glass jars of candy leading to the bathroom (which, admittedly, were in the original Donut Crazy), and the neon sign with literary aspirations—it appears that the first idea was always the final idea.
Beneath the cold, thoughtless veneer, traces of Donut Crazy haunt Glaze and Grind. You see the familiar counter and taste the familiar donut and know this shouldn’t be here right now. How could this very donut be? I thought Donut Crazy was dead, buried, and in donut franchise heaven. I’m not sure anymore.
