Shipley DO-Nuts

Tried this place years ago and left without any food because of a rude employee. Being the forgiving sort, I tried them again recently.
The donuts are never fresh. They’re cooked at the crack of dawn, so anytime past 8am everything is stale and hard. They’re also out of stuff a lot.
The staff is poorly trained and managed, with limited customer service skills. They rigidly enforce completely arbitrary credit card minimums, like their jobs depend on it, which is doubtful.
Mediocre product combined with even worse service = we still need a great local donut place.

If you get a fresh batch of doughnuts here, it might be the best you’ll ever have. My wife and I love their glazed blueberry cake doughnut, and regular glazed doughnuts. We’ve been a hand full of times now over the past few months and they are pretty consistent. Love the drive-​thru!

I find myself in Madison on a fairly regular basis. Rather than taking the interstate all the time, I enjoy cruising up & down Gallatin to take in the sights (and sites) of the northeastern parts of town. Since the road is usually packed with cars, I’ve had many opportunities to look left and right at what’s shakin’ on the road in/​out of the east side. It was then that I saw it. The sign. The sign that beckoned me to get fatter with reckless abandon. Many times I was able to resist its evil charms but on one cold Saturday morning, the light was red, traffic stopped and I turned in to the lot.
Folks, there’s a drive-​thru. That’s not even playing fair. Despite being a chain, Shipley’s has a retro/​local feel to it that reminded me of getting donuts on Saturday morning with my dad back in Louisville. I walked in to see a table of senior citizens, eating donuts, drinking coffee and complaining about things. Yep. This’ll do. And… what’s this? A check-​in offer? It’s like I was *meant* to come here. Since the offer mandated I get a dozen donuts to redeem… I *had* to get a dozen donuts. By the time I left the lot, I was already down two. That’s right. What started as a spur of the moment, ‘oh, I’ll get a donut to enjoy on the way home’ turned into ‘get me a dozen and no one gets hurt’ pig out.
The donut selection and quality reminded me of the local donut offerings from back home. As much as I enjoy fancy, trendy and artisanal donuts, there’s nothing like the real thing, old school, classics. Yep, put a ‘s’ on that because I came here to do damage: Chocolate-​filled, cream-​filled, blueberry cake, pumpkin pie cake, cinnamon, sugar, cherry iced, strawberry filled, chocolate cake iced, cinnamon roll (counts as two… and rightfully so), and maple iced. I came on a Saturday. By Monday morning they were all gone. All.Gone. I’m not ashamed. In fact, I did it again — but not on the next weekend. I do what I want.

Great place for yeast donuts. We get Shipley donuts for the office a couple times a week and we never have leftovers. I love this place.

I love a plain old donut covered in sugar for .97c just how we make them back in blighty.

Let’s start with the positive. The maple doughnut was good.
Now, the negative. When we pulled up the man responded with «sup». Then when asked what type of doughnuts were available, he said «not many». Then when asked if he could point out what’s left he said «nah, I just did dat and I ain’t gon do dat again.»

Donuts were pretty good. My favorite was the iced coconut. My only complaint was the guy at the window… From the second we pulled up, he assumed my husband was «famous» and asked «how’s the music business been lately?» Annoying. We are just normal people wanting to look at the menu of donuts, pay, and get out of here. He told him he’s not in the music industry and I even pointed out the fact that he assumed he was famous, to which he agreed he did, and he still wouldn’t stop talking to my husband. I finally had to sort of raise my voice to ask my husband which donuts he wanted. He finally got a hint and asked if we needed a minute. Thank god. We will go back to try other flavors, but let people have their space!

We’re new to the area & trying things around us. It has a cute sign-​perfect for a donut shop. Their cinnamon roll tasted like a honey bun which was nostalgic. Some donuts were more dry than others. Donuts were average and we’d go back.

Update: Glad to see someone has updated this restaurant’s address! Ugh, that was so annoying. Fact of the matter is, (depending on where you live) a drive to Madison is TOTALLY worth it for Shipley’s DO-​Nuts. These are my favorite! I love the cake ones the best, specifically maple frosted, chocolate, and their sour cream cake donut. I wish it were closer (or maybe I don’t…) I’d be there all the time!

This place has so much potential. My sister first brought me here when I moved to Nashville 5 years ago. She told me about this amazing cake donut with vanilla icing pressed in coconut flakes. They only had the cake donuts when we went but they offered to dip it in the icing and top it with coconut as they do every morning. So, when I came in just last week, I sort of expected the same experience. When we went inside, they had just a handful of donuts and we asked if they could make the coconut donut. The guy looked at us like we had sardines coming out of our ears and said they only did that in the mornings. Ok, disappointing but no big deal, we’ll jut get different donuts. We picked out several donuts and left. When we opened the box and tasted them, it was like these donuts were at least a day old. They were dry, stale, just not good at all.
If Shipley’s would just make their donuts fresh, they would be unstoppable.

Donuts are delicious, the coffee is disappointing, but the staff is usually pretty rude.

This is where I prefer to get my donuts. Highly recommended.

Simple Review: One of Nashville’s secret gems for those donut connoisseurs out there.
Pros: Very Good simple donuts (i rate all donut shops by their glazed and I prefer these «half way between Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts» type donuts)
Cons: inconvenient location (like most good donut shops)

This old school donut place is an ok place to stop in and try. You can see a real human being making donuts which is a rare thing these days. Old booths, old paint, this place could use a facelift. The donuts tasted fresh and the coffee was way too hot and tasted like gas station coffee. The maple glazed donut was fantastic. Stick with donuts and get em to go.

Good cinnamon rolls and good coffee with a smooth/​mild flavor.

I hear doughnuts are the single most unhealthy thing you can eat. I have a firm policy that if I am going to indulge in something that’s either pricey or fattening, it indeed should be worth it. How does Shipley’s fit in to my policy? With a hearty albeit merely occaisionally, YES PLEASE!
Prices are fair and the variety good. I think the doughnuts are a little heavier then Krispy Kreme but still manage to be fluffy so I definitely feel they are better. I personally like bear claws and apple fritters and Shipleys never disappoints me there. The apple fritters have a nice little crisp on the edges that just make them yum…
It might be wise to get there a little earlier because they do run out at times, especially on the weekends.

Shipley’s Doughnuts is a tasty place to grab a freshly made doughnut. Oh, my goodness, these doughnuts are so, um tasty, and I had a total sugar rush after eating one of their eclairs with the Bavarian cream inside. They sell glazed yeast doughnuts, fruit filled doughnuts, doughnut holes (where do they come from?), and bear claws. They are really, really cheap too, about half the price of a Krispy Kreme Doughnut, which is around $ 1, but Shipleys delux doughnut was only 65 cents. Cheap!
I also had a cup of coffee… hmm, this is why I had to knock off some stars, really sub par coffee here. But the place isn’t named ‘Shipley’s coffee’ so I can’t complain too much. If you want a tasty doughnut this is a good cheap place to try, just take the doughnuts home and make some coffee for yourself and you will be so happy.