Petunia's: gluten-free and vegan doughnuts in the West End

At 610 Southwest 12th in the Downtown West End, Petunia's Pies & Pastries is an easy storefront to walk past, and the doughnuts are a very good reason to stop. They're 100% gluten-free and vegan, fried that morning, and usually gone by a late lunch. Lisa Clark started Petunia's in 2009 as Portland's first entirely gluten-free and vegan bakery, working out of a home kitchen and selling at farmers markets, and she and Jacob Williamson opened the café in 2013. Everything in the shop is vegan and gluten-free, so you don't have to go hunting for labels.

It's a full café. Savory food runs 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., pizza by the slice lasts until it sells out, usually mid-afternoon, and whole pizzas are available 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and take about 25 minutes. The coffee is Great North. Start with the doughnuts, since the shop itself says they sell out quickly and the selection is fullest in the first couple of hours, and if you want to check whether the maple bar is still there, call (503) 841-5961 ext. 1.

The fried doughnuts on the official treats menu are the Maple Bar, Chocolate Sprinkle, Boston Cream, Jelly-Filled, Chocolate Peanut Butter and Berry Lemon Poppy Seed. Add a Babycake to your doughnut, which is what the shop calls its cupcakes, in Birthday (coconut cake, vanilla buttercream, rainbow sprinkles), Chocolate Sprinkles, Lemon Blackberry Poppy Seed, Strawberry Vanila Bean (that's how they spell it), S'mores with house graham crackers and toasted mini marshmallows, Banana Carrot Zucchini with cream cheese frosting, and Coconut Passionberry. The buttercream, the cream cheese and the "egg" on the savory menu are all the house's own vegan versions.

There are bars too, like the Buster Bar (peanut butter cookie crust, peanut buttercream, ganache, sea salt), a Salted Caramel Cookie Bar and a Thin Mint Brownie, and for eating on the walk there are chocolate chip cookies, Circus Animal cookies and an iced sugar cookie with pink frosting. Cinnamon rolls come with cream cheese frosting, and there are pecan sticky buns. Pie slices rotate through Bumble Berry Peach, Marionberry with oatmeal streusel, strawberry rhubarb, raspberry rhubarb, and peach vanilla bean with coconut crumb, so ask what they have that day, and the weekend layer-cake slices rotate too. Whole cakes and wedding cakes aren't sold walk-in, and you order those through Square.

The café is open daily, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Street parking is usually a block or two away, there's an underground lot across the street at First Presbyterian, and there's a 5-minute Fast Stop on the northeast corner of 12th and Alder if you're just grabbing something. Go right at opening, because the doughnuts really do sell out.

A lot of vegan baking tastes like a substitute, and Petunia's doesn't, which is why regulars keep coming back. Get a doughnut, add a Babycake, and go early.

The essentials are on the Petunia's Pies & Pastries page.