Underground Donut Tour in River North provides a tasty history lesson
CHICAGO (CBS) -- If you're looking for a fun way to fall into the new season, donuts might be an unlikely place to start.
CBS 2's Jamaica Ponder joined the Underground Donut Tour to see how River North bakeries are putting a local spin on some classic flavors and to get a real taste of what autumn is like in Chicago.
"One thing we always look forward to is the changing of the seasons, so we get new donuts in," said Jackson Hercules.
Hercules and Nick Coffman-Price describe themselves as donut connoisseurs. They're guides for the Underground Doughnut Tour, leading groups through River North to some of the city's most coveted doughnut shops.
"We're doing a banana brown butter donut at Fire Cakes, that is fantastic," Hercules said. "I think one of the best on it that we've ever had on the tour is we're doing an apple cider donut."
"It stands for the fall and the Donut Vault where the tour starts. They always have a daily special and, you know, they always try and keep it very seasonal over there," Hercules added.
"[They had] Pumpkin spice today, very popular," said Coffman-Price.
Coffman-Price, added, "We've been doing this route for three years now. So they know us pretty well at this point. We have to order our donuts really early in the morning because a lot of stuff sells out by the time we even do the tour. So like, you know, we wake up like 7-7:30 a.m., order all the donuts online"
Doughnuts are only the half of it. Chicagoans and tourists frequent the Underground Doughnut Tour, attracted by the prospect of perhaps learning something new in between bites.
"If you're new to Chicago, you should do it because it's super knowledgeable because they give little history lessons as well," said Adam Goldfarb, a tour guest. "Like when we're going through, they're talking about different buildings and stuff and who created them."
"We get a lot of Chicagoians," Hercules said. "What we say is, it's great if you're a Chicagoian and you have like some family in town, it's a great because it's a very family friendly tour and hopefully, if you're a Chicagoian, you'll hear something on the tour that you didn't know before."
Now one of Chicago's most popular food tours and with additional tours in 13 other cities, the Underground Doughnut Tour had a more humble start right here in Chicago.
"When I started doing this, it was just me and Jeff," Hercules said. "That was the entire company. The company started in Chicago. We ran one tour a week. We had about, five or ten people on the tour maximum."
But then, Hercules added, "One day, for. whatever reason, we sold out. We started selling out. I remember I woke up, we had an automated email that would come in. We had like 45 people booked on a tour, which was not supposed to happen, you know? And we started selling out tours and kind of the rest is history.
Now the tour has grown to 13 cities. The founders added "It's been incredible to watch the company grow and we have a good time doing it."