Today is a sad, sad day for the donut empire. Chris and I have just found out that the GREATEST donut shop in Orlando, and in THE WORLD, just closed its doors. Yes, folks, Hotties Donuts is officially closed.

You may be wondering why 2 healthy vegetarians would be so upset over something which seems so opposite their lifestyle. Aren’t donuts the devil? Well, if you come to this conclusion then you must not have tasted the aforementioned donut!

We discovered said donuts on a (long, healthy) walk to a (healthy, vegetarian) Indian restaurant which we loved to eat at in Orlando. We spotted the (fattening, unhealthy) donut shop across the way on our walk back.
We looked inside the window and found that a. Hotties does not, nor has ever used trans fats or animal-derived fats in their baking., and b. There were a lot of unique flavors to try. So we agreed that, since we had walked for over an hour, it wouldn’t hurt us too much to try just one. So we asked for a chocolate donut with peanut butter in the middle. When we sat down and bit into it, we realized what insane things people might do for such goodness.

So we took to walking to Hotties donuts nearly every other day in the Florida, oftentimes forgetting about the Indian restaurant across the way. We tried mint-chocolate donuts, orange-glazed donuts, and Boston creme donuts that would make Dunkin Donuts hang themselves by a noose in defeat.

I am certain grown men have wept when biting into a Hotties Donut. I was certain that I’d have pregnancy cravings of pickles covered in a Hotties cinnamon-glazed. Hotties wasn’t just a donut shop, it was a sensation. It put Krispy Kremes around the world to shame.

Now that I hear of the news I’m not sure what we’ll do. When we take our next trip to Florida, what will be our motivating factor for those scorching, long walks? (You see, Hotties did actually motivate us to walk more, so therefore it essentially was good for us….kinda…) It’s sad that we’ll never bite into a peanut-butter chocolate again. Hotties, we’ll try to carry on without ya, but it’ll be hard….it’ll be hard….