Trying out the supposed “top rated fast food chain” in the state of Georgia was the next step for me after The Gate With Brian Cohen published this article on The Best and Worst Rated Fast Food Chains in Every State in the United States on Saturday, October 22, 2022.
Trying Out the “Top Rated Fast Food Chain” in Georgia.
In that article, I was in disbelief with the result for Georgia, as I wrote in the aforementioned article: “I must take issue with Daylight Donuts being the top fast food restaurant chain in the state of Georgia, as I had never heard of the company. I went to the official Internet web site of Daylight Donuts and only found two locations within the state of Georgia: one in Atlanta; and the other in Cartersville. I cannot believe that Chick-fil-A is not considered to be the top fast food restaurant chain in the state in which the company was founded and is still currently based.”
Since that article was written, Daylight Donuts currently has five — count them, five — locations within the entire state of Georgia; and the location in Atlanta is no longer occupied by Daylight Donuts. That is hardly an indication of “being the top fast food restaurant chain in the state of Georgia”. As a stark comparison, I do not know of a Chick-fil-A location in Georgia that does not almost always have a line of customers waiting to place their orders and retrieve their food and beverages.
In other words, Chick-fil-A is clearly exponentially more popular than Daylight Donuts — but what is the product and experience of Daylight Donuts?
The only location of Daylight Donuts anywhere within the greater Atlanta metropolitan area is in Cartersville; so that is where we went.
The selection of doughnuts was not all that large during our visit, as not all varieties are available at any given time. Competing places — whether they are locally owned doughnut shops or chains such as Dunkin’ — typically have a larger selection…
…and what is with that lone doughnut in the lower part of the case by itself?
Different varieties of doughnuts that are offered for sale include Glaze, Cake, Chocolate, Mix, and Holes; while varieties of pastries include Cream Filled, Apple Fritter, Cinnamon Roll, Cinnamon Twirl, Long John, and Bear Claws…
…but bizarrely, different varieties of Burritos, Croissants, and Pigs in Blankets are offered in addition to doughnuts and pastries.
Several types of hot coffee are sold at a station where customers serve themselved. A limited assortment of condiments are available for the coffee.
We ordered a variety of a dozen doughnuts…
…as well as an assortments of filled doughnuts with chocolate frosting.
I tried a chocolate doughnut with a lemon filling. I did not get to the filling until I was approximately halfway through the doughnut; and then the filling unexpectedly squirted out of the other side. The doughnut was good — as were the other doughnuts that I sampled — but it was not memorable.
Final Boarding Call
The doughnuts of Daylight Donuts were…fine. They were not bad; but they were nothing special, in my opinion. They were no better than most of the other doughnuts that I have had in my life. Although I would probably eat them again if they happen to be offered to me, I would not go out of my way to go to any location of Daylight Donuts, as almost any other doughnut shop will do.
They absolutely do not qualify Daylight Donuts as the top fast food restaurant chain in the state of Georgia. I can think of many other fast food restaurant chains which would better qualify. I believe I saw a total of three other customers while I was there — certainly not the traffic and the crowds as seen at Chick-fil-A locations in Georgia.
Daylight Donuts was founded by Tommy and Lucille Day as the Daylight Donut Flour Company in Tusla in Oklahoma in 1954; and the headquarters of the company is still based in that city. The company has almost 1,000 locations in at least 13 countries.
I liked the graphics and information of those articles that were supplied by me from the entity which gave me permission to publish them at The Gate With Brian Cohen, as I had found them fun and interesting — but in addition to other similar articles in which readers repeatedly pointed out errors and misinformation, I could not in good conscience any longer publish articles such as the article to which I referred at the beginning of this article.
This article opened my eyes to daylight — in more ways than one…
All photographs ©2025 by Brian Cohen.
