Donut Box LA Sells $2 Doughnuts From a South LA Shipping Container

Is L.A. witnessing the rebirth of the doughnut craze? Perhaps. The rise of colorful all-day doughnut and coffee shop ICDC points in that direction, as does the recent arrival of Donut Box LA in South L.A.

Donut Box is housed inside of a literal box — or, more appropriately, shipping container — that’s been painted bright pink (as is the doughnut style here in L.A., thanks largely to the Cambodians who run the city’s doughnut subculture), and it currently sits in the parking lot of the Hamilton United Methodist Church on Figueroa, just below Gage Ave.

It’s a quirky place for a doughnut stand, but that’s the way ownership likes it; their business origin story trades on the nostalgia of the neighborhood doughnut shop as a classic, local institution, without the high price point or spendy storefront. Doughnuts come in at or below $2, and coffee hovers around the same price. Varieties include classic vanilla bean glaze, smores, and even ones topped with breakfast cereal.

Donut Box LA is very much in soft open mode at the moment, currently producing only a small number of doughnuts daily to sell from their container, with hours running from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. most days. Thanks to low overhead and a centralized production facility, Donut Box ownership hope to replicate the concept elsewhere as time goes on.

Donut Box LA
6330 S. Figueroa
Los Angeles, CA