Why Donuts Express matters.
Donuts Express is a family-run donut shop where West Anaheim's neighborhood commercial character meets hand-finished doughnuts, breakfast croissants and a compact morning counter serving the surrounding community for more than two decades.
Set along Magnolia Avenue near Ball Road and just steps from Magnolia High School, the shop occupies western Anaheim between the residential blocks surrounding Modjeska Park, the Beach Boulevard commercial corridor and the Stanton city boundary, with Twila Reid Park extending northwest, the Garden Grove Freeway crossing the urban grid to the south and the Anaheim Resort district developing several miles east beyond Brookhurst Street. A compact storefront places the pastry cases and service counter immediately inside the entrance, keeping the principal focus on baked goods prepared for quick morning purchases. Raised rings, twists, bars, cake doughnuts and filled varieties establish the core assortment through several dough styles and finishes. Croissants, breakfast sandwiches, coffee and chilled drinks extend the counter into savory morning service. The result is a small West Anaheim donut shop whose unusually broad breakfast repertoire has developed around the straightforward neighborhood bakery format.
What defines Donuts Express.
Donuts Express is best known for operating as a family-owned Anaheim donut shop under owner Kheang Lim, with a business history extending more than two decades on Magnolia Avenue. Lim remains directly associated with the operation, preserving independent ownership within a category deeply connected to Southern California's small family-run donut shops. The storefront was already established by the early 2000s and has retained the Donuts Express name through the subsequent transformation of western Anaheim's commercial landscape. Its repertoire reaches beyond doughnuts into croissants, sandwiches, muffins, coffee and boba, creating a morning operation substantially broader than its principal bakery category. Hot preparations have also included soup, placing a full savory item beside the conventional pastry and breakfast counter. Raised rounds, twists and bars remain prominent forms within the display, with the larger dimensions of the doughnuts becoming a recognizable feature of the shop's output. The business continues operating from the same Magnolia Avenue storefront, maintaining the long-running family format into 2026.
Ham and cheese croissants give the savory side of the counter its clearest specialty, combining a laminated pastry shell with a warm filling substantial enough to function as breakfast on its own. A jalapeño version folds chile heat into the ham-and-cheese combination, producing a sharper contrast against the croissant's butter-rich layers. Raised doughnuts move in another direction through airy interiors and glazed or chocolate-coated surfaces, joined in the display by elongated bars and twisted dough. Sprinkle doughnuts and hot chocolate create a simpler pairing around sweetness and warm cocoa, and muffins expand the baked selection beyond fried dough. Boba introduces chilled tea-based drinks with tapioca texture, and brewed coffee supplies the conventional counterpoint to the pastry case. Lobster soup occupies the most unexpected end of the repertoire, using a creamy, seasoned preparation to push the shop beyond the breakfast combinations normally associated with an independent donut counter.
How Donuts Express fits.
Donuts Express works as the anchor for an outing connecting West Anaheim's educational history with a municipal golf course tied to an extraordinary longevity record and the multigenerational family enterprise that produced one of Orange County's smallest amusement parks.
Begin at Twila Reid Park, a 27.2-acre municipal landscape opened in 1965 and named for Twila G. Reid, the pioneering educator who became California's first female school district superintendent. Reid spent 37 years with the Savanna Elementary School District, linking the park's name directly to the development of public education in this section of Orange County. The grounds later accumulated softball fields, football and soccer space, horseshoe pits and a disc golf course, with two pedestrian bridges spanning a drainage channel through the property. A 2017 improvement project replaced those bridges and renewed portions of a park already more than half a century old. Continue to Dad Miller Golf Course, the 18-hole municipal course opened in 1961 after Anaheim combined city property with 60 acres leased from the Orange County Flood Control District. Richard Miller designed the course, and his father Harold George “Dad” Miller supplied the name after becoming one of its most extraordinary regulars. Miller began golfing at 55, continued walking 36 holes into his eighties and made an ace on the 107-yard 11th hole in December 1970 at age 93, earning recognition as the oldest golfer to record a hole-in-one at that time. Tiger Woods later played the course as a Western High School freshman, then contributed $5 million toward the youth educational center developed there. Conclude at Adventure City, whose roots reach to Hobby City, the specialty retail complex Jay and Bea DeArmond established in 1955. Their grandson Allan Ansdell Jr. grew up operating the family's miniature train and began researching a children's amusement park in 1987 after customers encouraged expansion beyond the train ride. Six years of financing work preceded a January 1994 groundbreaking, with Ansdell's parents committing proceeds from the sale of their Seal Beach oceanfront home to the project. Adventure City opened that August as a two-acre park with 11 attractions, incorporating the miniature train from Hobby City and building its streetscape around the proportions of a small storybook town. The progression moves from a park preserving the name of a pioneering California educator through a golf course associated with two generations of the Miller family and culminates in a family enterprise that converted a postwar hobby center into an independent Orange County amusement park.
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