How in the world is that place not still open? Tacos? Donuts? Subs? Those are my favorite food groups!

It has "tacos" twice, too.

I came across the now-grounded later-generation awning while on a walkabout in the Lincoln Park area this past summer.



I didn't know HOD existed until it was too late.

Ohh the tacos were the best.  Late night taco/donut run.  We used to walk down to HOD when we lived at 11th Ave E in college, and sit in the park eating tacos in the middle of the night.  Good times.  We miss you HOD!

There was a recent thread on Donuts in Duluth.  There wasn't a consensus on the best Donuts in the area, as I recall.

I loved the roast beef with those huge pickle and onion chunks!! I forgot about those butter bars.

I still think about the House of Donuts every day. Every. Day.

Butter bar! Nothing topped off a night in SupeTown like a deep-fried stick of butter.

I moved here in 2000 desperately wishing for a donut shop and never had any idea this place was (?) here.  I'm still desperately wishing for that donut shop, by the way, so feel free to take Barrett's hint as long as you locate somewhere east-ish.  

In the former Lakeside Falk's would be super.

The butter bar ala HOD was a heavy, cakey deep fried glazed thing that looked kinda like a twinky but with heavy dough and no filling. Might have been soaked in butter then split along the top and deep fried and glazed (much like many of us who ordered them a 2:30 am). They came in chocolate too.

Horseshoe Billiards could have it's own post, I should think.  I ended up in the back room once last year while trying to find the toilet. It's actually a mothballed pool hall, completely full of old restaurant equipment, signs, and so on.   I felt like I was in the twilight zone.

"More Then Donuts." I'll scan the magnet some day.

You could get a coronary just walking by that place. That building started off as a laundromat. I actually was in the basement once, where they actually made the donuts. Now that was an interesting place.

I'm fortunate to have visited the HOD on many occasions.  Right across the street next to the Last Chance Liquor was another favorite college staple ... Jonny Ray: Home of the $5 Pizza!

Guess I have to out myself as Tony D's roommate those years.  That sub w/ the pickle ruled.   Course that was after a couple years at Emerson w/ Baci and the other n'er-do-wells.  There was an interesting combination of 'iron youth' and hippies.

Oh good lord, that was a butter bar???  I've completely lost my appetite for the next five years.  I don't care what anyone says:  excessive alcohol intake can only go so far, can only justify so many things.

Yuck.

@jessige, I think there used to be a Dunkin Donuts behind the University Conoco, no foolin.  And I agree with you, a 24-hour coffee-n-donuts place would be good there.

Ha!  Sweet.  I resubmit my idea that someone ought to put a Tim Hortons in this town.

Joe Huey's was 24 hours.

Did they even have donuts? Real donuts? All I remember eating here was a roast beef sandwich with cheez whiz.

Well, goose, if you were the owner/ operator and sole late nite employee, you could prepare a snack bar type spread of all your overnite necessities for a semi quick reheatable turn around, and run it like a big city crack house, secret knock and/or password and all. Doze on a cot in the back and rise when prompted to throw midnite tacos and sandwiches together for your drunken neighbors. Not too far off from HOD at 3:30AM.. You could even serve it thru a mail slot-like opening in the door. 'Urban appeal' with low overhead...

Lundgren, I think you got hacked.  Clearly, Mrs. Goose is now writing your comments.

Paul, while I see your logic, the other answer to why 24-hour joints don't work in Duluth (unlike other, larger cities) is that, frankly, we lack the economic engine of shift-work.  The other reason to want a donut at 2am is that you've just finished your 5pm-to-1am shift at your job.

Similarly, when I saw there was no 24-hour Kinkos, I knew that a whole range of business and creative cultures could not happen in Duluth -- the zinester making copies at 5am before heading off to school, the high-tech print job that has to be dropped off at 5pm and ready by 9am, etc.

We're just a little slower in metabolism.

Winchells was the go-to donut shop when I was a kid.

There's also the Spudnut shop in Richland WA.

I might get hassled for this statement, but I think HoD closed because donuts that taste awesome when you're drunk =/= donuts that taste awesome when you're sober.

It's Duluth, and there are people who drink early, but not enough to keep a business open.

Definitely wasn't bought out by the co-op though -- HoD closed many years before WFC bought the 6th East location.

I stand corrected. 

I find it amazing that I only recall the place being open until around 1999. Did it quit being open 24 hours at some point? Because I definitely recall buying frozen White Castles at the Gangster Spur walking home from the Red Lion in October 2003, and I can't imagine Fromberg and I would have gone that route if donuts were available.

I think it is population density: if there were enough demand for a 24-hour Kinko's, there would be one. With food, currently Taco John's, McDonald's, Perkins, the Chicken and Ghetto Spur and other convenience stores appear to fill enough of the gap.

IMO: If you have a high-tech print job that needs overnight self-service printing (versus high-tech professional print services which run 24 hours anyway) that has to be dropped off at 5PM and ready by 9AM, you are either doing mad business, or you fucked up. The grocery stores, the Walgreens, the Walmarts and some gas stations have color copiers in a pinch.

Duluth Family Sauna has a Saturday Overnight Special (no-reentry) from 12PM-8AM Sunday.

More often than not, after 2AM, the HOD had 1 employee working.

I was on the co-op board when they bought that property in 2005. I don't remember there being any connection to that and HOD closing that same year.

I used to work in an office in the Building for Women, which overlooked the Duluth Family Sauna. Oh my.