Congdon's "You'll Love Our Food or It's Free"...and donuts

When a restaurant makes this claim most dedicated foodies will either be suspicious or crowd in just to test its metal. However, when that restaurant also serves homemade donuts, it's more akin to a food free-for-all with 4 deep at the counter and a line out the door.

I give you Congdon's of Wells Maine.

This is a shop so steeped in the local culture that even a gas explosion, which literally blew it off the map, couldn't keep the donuts from the masses. With 30+ different donuts, fritters, and a Whoopie pie the size of a small trampoline; this place is fun for the whole family!

One this particular visit I brought the brother and nephew, who have now become die-hard fans. Note Ian's face, emotionless in mid-foodcoma, while Toby is alive with the glee of a 5 year old boy realizing he no longer needs to ask permission to buy another donut.

On this special morning the boys found themselves in quite the donut dilemma. Mike had ordered 2, Toby 2 (including a fritter), and Ian 2 + a half dozen (these were for later). The astute girl at the counter, who was much better at math than the three of us combined, said "Why don't you just get 3 more for a bakers dozen?" We three stood and stared in a complete daze. We knew she was suggesting we buy more donuts and somehow this might monetarily make sense however, between the brain cramping math and stomachs growling the only one thing we could determine for certain was that somehow we would be getting "MORE DONUTS". This, we grunted, was a good thing. That is of course until we sat down and Toby blankly stated..."Wait, how many donuts did we just buy?!!!" Thus ensued the trading session like that at the end of most trick-or-treats from back in the day; only now there's no Bit-O-Honey to off load on your little brother- these are donuts - and one things for certain...no matter how much coffee you haven't had, or whose got the quickest fingers, no one relinquishes a jelly stick from Congdon's without a fight!