Frost Doughnuts Expands Into a “Dessert Lounge”
The doughnut titans will put their Frostian spin on cupcakes, soft-serve frozen custard, and housemade toppings
By Allecia Vermillion, March 14, 2014
Those of us who live in Seattle city limits have pined for a Frost Doughnuts location closer to home. And while the destinationworthy doughnut shop is staying put in Mill Creek, it’s planning a major expansion that will double its size and add a slew of sweet offerings far beyond its namesake.
The new space lets Frost evolve from doughnut shop to 60-seat “dessert lounge,” says Frost partner Del Hernandez, and be open until 10pm.
First, the cupcakes. When Frost reopens in its new space in May, it will have a lineup of 12 flavors with appropriately Frostian flair. “Some people think cupcakes are dead; I disagree.” says Hernandez. “We get constant requests for cupcakes, and people who come in and say ‘I thought this was a cupcake shop.’”
The store is moving to a new location within the same complex, slightly further north on Main Street.
The flavors will rotate, but might include a banana cupcake with a banana and malted milk chocolate frosting, topped with a banana chip, or a vanilla bourbon cupcake with maple-bacon frosting. Or the very summery renditions in the photos above. Frost brought in a pastry chef from Denver to develop these, and Hernandez heaped lots of praise on his gluten-free cupcake recipe.
The new Frost will have two flavors of soft-serve frozen custard, custom made by the excellent Snoqualmie Ice Cream. “It’s eggy and creamy and rich and goes beautifully with what we serve,” Hernandez promises. Flavors can be dispensed into a housemade cone fashioned from a cannoli shell. Toppings like sea salt butterscotch or brandied pears are just as plucky as Frost’s doughnut concoctions.
“We wanted to respond to people who come in for dessert, but aren’t thinking about doughnuts for dessert,” said Hernandez’s fellow partner Daniel Sterling. Though plans for sundaes consisting of a doughnut, frozen custard, and topping of choice make a very convincing argument for postprandial doughnuts.
If you need to stave off a sugar coma, the new space will also have a full coffee and espresso setup, with beans roasted for Frost by Victrola Coffee Roasters (the original location couldn’t do this because of its proximity to Starbucks).
Frost will likely have to close for a week during the changeover, but Hernandez and Sterling expect the new space to be completed mid May. And for those of us who can’t make the trip up I5 as often as we’d like, Frost is planning a doughnut truck(!), and a Seattle store is still on the agenda. “Once we have this open and refine the concept, we expect to open other locations,” says Hernandez. “It will definitely be worth the wait.”