Dessert is the answer to so many questions — and the best way to celebrate the end of the school year, a hard week at work, date night, or any time you need to feed that nagging sweet tooth.
But if you didn’t take a picture of it, did you really even ingest all those calories? Three new and insanely Instagrammable dessert shops and bakeries have recently opened around the Denver area. One is known for its take on an ice cream sandwich that uses doughnuts as the “bread”; another takes milkshakes to an extravagant level; and the third finally found a space to put its perfectly laminated croissants on display.
Enjoy yourself first, and worry about the dentist later.
Yonutz
Florida-based Yonutz opened up its first Colorado location at 7939 E. Arapahoe Road in Greenwood Village last month. The gourmet donut shop gained widespread popularity after a TikTok of its Smash Donut went viral. The Smash Donuts are made by slicing a doughnut in half, filling it with ice cream and then hot pressing it back together so that customers are eating an ice cream-filled doughnut.
That led to “Shark” entrepreneur Kevin Harrington partnering with the dessert shop in an effort to get more than 30 locations up and running by the end of 2023. Franchise owners and husband-and-wife team Sandy and Jeff Brewton run the store with their three sons, Trevor, Cody and Brandon.
“Eventually, we’d like to open up a store for each boy,” Sandy said.
7939 E. Arapahoe Road, Unit 100, Greenwood Village; 303-953-1034; yonutz.com/
The Yard Milkshake Bar
The Yard Milkshake Bar also has “Shark Tank” ties after founders Logan and Chelsea Green struck a $400,000 investment deal on the show in 2019 to franchise the business with Mark Cuban.
The over-the-top milkshake shop opened in downtown Denver on May 12. With eye-catching toppings like cotton candy, candy bars, and even slices of New York cheesecake, The Yard shakes, which come in mason jars customers get to keep, are great for sharing or even for individuals who can handle a little brain freeze.
This Denver location, owned by husband and wife Karthik Raghuram and Meenali Khare, has an exclusive Rocky Mountain shake with Happy Tracks and Cookies N’ Cream ice cream, marshmallow and chocolate drizzle and topped with Pop-Tarts mountain peaks, chocolate rocks, and crushed Oreos.
1600 California St., Unit 2, Denver; 303-534-0149; theyardmilkshakebar.com
Black Box Bakery
After starting as a wholesale operation in 2019, Black Box Bakery has found its sweet spot. Founders Megan Read and Arielle Israel, who met at the Culinary Institute of America, along with Read’s husband Ty Webb, had been using Ironton Distillery’s kitchen in the middle of the night to grow their wholesale accounts before upgrading to The Renaissance hotel’s banquet kitchen the next year.
At the end of March, the owners debuted their first retail shop in Edgewater Public Market, featuring out-of-this-world pastries with a space theme, like the $5 Lunar Lava Danish, which comes with a variety of fillings like spinach and artichoke or thyme blackberry.
5505 W. 20th Ave., Edgewater; 720-213-8531; blackboxbakery.com