Review: Everglazed Donuts & Cold Brew at Disney Springs

Everglazed Donuts & Cold Brew is a new counter service restaurant at Disney Springs serving sandwiches, fries, beer, and alcohol in addition to the doughnuts. In this Walt Disney World dining review, we’ll share food photos and how this bakery stacks up to the competition over at Universal Orlando.

The hand-crafted confections at Everglazed Donuts & Cold Brew are made from scratch daily in limited quantities, with a maximum order of two dozen per person. The menu features both classic donuts and gourmet creations, with the most popular donuts available year-round and others rotating seasonally.

Everglazed Donuts & Cold Brew is located between Splitsville and the AMC Theater in the former home of Pop Gallery near the exit of Orange Garage at Disney Springs. The West Side is the last component of the colossal transformation of Disney Springs, with Everglazed being the latest piece of the puzzle following Jaleo…

The intimate design of Everglazed Donuts & Cold Brew purports to be a spin on a classic donut shop, featuring graphic pops of color, iconic signage, and an inviting outdoor seating area dubbed the donut garden.

Before guests enter the sweets shop, they can catch a glimpse of a culinary experience unfolding through the windows of the working show kitchen where the donuts are fried, glazed, and piled high with toppings.

Let’s start our review of Everglazed Donuts & Cold Brew with a trio of the doughnuts…

First, the Peanut Butter Explosion: Chocolate Iced Donut, Peanut Butter chips, crushed Reese’s Cup and Chocolate Peanut Butter frosting.

We previously derided Voodoo Doughnuts for its options with gimmicky toppings, and the same generally holds true for all gourmet/trendy doughnut shops. One of my exceptions is Reese’s Cups (two others are bacon and Cinnamon Toast Crunch). While we’d stop short of calling this an “explosion” of chocolate and peanut butter, it’s a good mix. The toppings don’t overwhelm, making it a good option if you want something indulgent–but still want to be able to taste the doughnut itself.

Next, Nutella Bella: Nutella crème-filled, Chocolate Iced Donut and crushed Hazelnuts.

We’re huge suckers for Nutella, and think the flavor of this is generally delicious.

The bigger issue we had is the opposite of most gimmicky doughnuts–there wasn’t enough filling here.

If we could have this same doughnut with about double the filling, it would be an ideal Nutella doughnut. As it stands, this is a very good chocolate doughnut with hazelnut texture, plus a few bites of the center that were mind-blowing.

Our last doughnut is the Purple Glazed Ube–the lone vegan option on the menu. Ube is ubiquitous in Asia; it’s a yam similar to sweet potatoes. In the last couple of years, it has become trendy in the US thanks to its eye-catching purple color.

Despite the vivid appearance, ube is fairly mild. The flavor of this doughnut is consistent with that, and you get a light earthiness and savory quality that offers a subtle enhancement to the base yeast and cake.

That’s fine with us, as the core doughnuts at Everglazed can speak for themselves. The ones we bought were all airy, fresh, and tasty.

They’re not going to revolutionize the doughnut world, nor will these become anyone’s new favorites, but they’re solid. They’re the best doughnuts at Disney Springs and the tastiest quick service snacks on the West Side, so there’s that.

Double-dipping, we also ordered the Reese’s Nitro Cold Brew: Peanut Butter and Vanilla syrups, Chocolate drizzle, crushed Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups topped with a Peanut Butter Explosion Donut.

This was good but very sweet. We’d only recommend it if you specifically want a cold brew coffee with a doughnut on top. Anyone wanting just a doughnut or just a cold brew, should look elsewhere. On the Disney Springs cold brew front, the options at both Starbucks and Gideon’s Bakehouse are superior.

Moving to the savory snacks, we first opted to order the Loaded Fries topped with Chili, Queso, Bacon, Scallions, Tomato, Cilantro, and Sour Cream.

We were apprehensive that stepping out of the bakeshop’s wheelhouse would yield less favorable results. The exact opposite was true: this was better than the doughnuts! The waffle fries held up well under the weight of the toppings, which were all high-quality, delicious, and came together perfectly. We’re big fans of the loaded fries over at Chicken Guy, and these are on par with those–albeit a larger portion size for $1 more. We’d recommend this.

For our final item, we ordered the B&G Burger featuring two Patties, American Cheese, Ketchup, Mayo, Lettuce, Tomato and B&B Pickles. (We added a griddled glazed donut bun for $1 extra.)

This was fantastic. We feared that this would be an unmitigated disaster of clashing flavors and over-the-top decadence, but it worked. It really worked! Against all odds, the sweetness of the doughnut melded beautifully with the patties and toppings and coalesced in one fantastic burger.

It may not look appealing via photos, but the B&G Burger really was the totally unexpected highlight of what we ordered. I’d liken it to a Culver’s ButterBurger or Shake Shack ShakeBurger on steroids, with the sweetness amplified but not to an overwhelming degree.

The biggest downside here is price: $14. This is more expensive than even D-Luxe Burger and, like that, also does not come with sides. We’re going to side-step the question of which is better, as they’re incredibly different. Even with that hefty price tag, this burger is the most compelling reason for me to return to Everglazed.

As for how Everglazed Donuts compares to Voodoo Doughnuts, it’s pretty much a toss-up on taste alone. We wouldn’t give either an incredibly enthusiastic recommendation. One is the doughnut champion at Universal, the other is the doughnut champion at Walt Disney World. In both cases, that’s partly a result of meager competition.

If forced to choose at this point, I’d pick Voodoo Doughnuts on taste alone, and that’s primarily because of their seasonal options; we’ve enjoyed several of these and they’re usually delicious, inventive, and fun. We haven’t had that same opportunity yet with Everglazed.

Most of the effusive praise in our Voodoo Doughnuts Review revolved around the value for money. With Everglazed Donuts, the price is noteworthy for the exact opposite reason. This is something we seldom fixate on in reviews of new restaurants at Walt Disney World since prices normally increase and there’s insulation for many guests in normal times via the Disney Dining Plan. However, we’d be remiss not to address it here.

Doughnut prices at Everglazed start at $4.50. The more inventive options on the “Funky Bunch” menu are $5.50. The discounted price for a dozen doughnuts is $60. We’ve become fairly numb to the Walt Disney World pricing surcharge over the years, but this is absurd.

Try to explain it away or rationalize it however you want, but Everglazed Donuts is overpriced even by Disney standards. It’s understandably more expensive than real world locales like Dunkin’ or Krispy Kreme (by a lot!), but it’s even significantly worse than its closest theme park competitor.

We praised Voodoo Doughnuts for its options starting at $1.50, which offer tremendous bang for buck. In fairness, the equivalent options there are in the $2.50 to $3.75 range, or $29 for the premium Fryer Flyer dozen. That’s less than half the price of Everglazed Donuts. And that’s the most expensive dozen at Voodoo–there are also options under $20.

Much has been made of Everglazed’s font feeling very Dunkin-inspired (to put it charitably). To me, the oddest part of that typography emulation is that it invites comparisons that are ultimately unfavorable. Dunkin’ is beloved by Americans as a cheap place to grab coffee and doughnuts.

Everglazed evokes the familiar chain…but then hits consumers with preposterous pricing. The attempt at leeching off the goodwill of Dunkin’ is destined to backfire. If anything, Everglazed Donuts & Cold Brew should’ve forged its own image as an upmarket and chic boutique bakery (or whatever) to justify its price points.

Ultimately, we really wanted to love Everglazed Donuts & Cold Brew. We hoped it would be Walt Disney World’s answer to Voodoo Doughnuts at Universal’s CityWalk; a snack spot we could hit up regularly before doing a movie at the Disney Springs AMC Theater. To be sure, some of its menu did impress us; the doughnuts are decent or better and the B&G Burger is downright delicious.

Unfortunately, there’s no getting past that pricing for us. Literally nothing we ordered, even the items that we praised, offered commensurate value for money. Nothing is that good, unique, or high-quality. It’s actually a sharp contrast to Gideon’s Bakehouse, another recent addition to the dining lineup at Disney Springs. Whereas Gideon’s is also undeniably expensive, they make unforgettable cookies that are worth every penny–something we’ll revisit with regularity. On the other hand, the only memorable thing about Everglazed is the $45 we dropped there. The doughnuts are totally forgettable, and something we’re fine never doing again. So to answer the titular question, no victory over Voodoo Doughnuts for Everglazed.

Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!

YOUR THOUGHTS

Have you eaten at Everglazed Donuts & Cold Brew? Which doughnuts did you order? Try any other menu items? Thoughts on the good and bad? Excited to try this bakeshop at Disney Springs, or will you save your stomach space for Gideon’s Bakehouse or doughnut budget for Voodoo? Do you agree or disagree with our commentary? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!

24 Responses to “Review: Everglazed Donuts & Cold Brew at Disney Springs”
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