:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/46131666/o.0.0.jpg)
Apparently the Richmond location of All Star Donuts is inspiring more than late-night doughnut expeditions and morning coffee talk. The Chronicle's recent profile of local still life painter, Jay Mercado, reveals the powerful effect of a good, fluffy glazed doughnut.
Ranging from $2,500 to $7,500, Mercado's hunger-inducing paintings have made their way into homes and businesses across the Bay Area, most notably adorning a new Genentech building in South San Francisco, built on the site of a former bakery. The multi-billion dollar biotechnology corporation purchased six of Mercado's "Ocean Beach" doughnuts, which depicts the photo-realistic pastries balanced on the seawall with the ocean in the background.
Every doughnut he's painted over the last 21 years has come from All Star, the seriously low-tech, no-frills doughnut shop located a block from his studio at 10th and Clement. Even after experimenting with fancier bakeries, he kept coming back to All Star's classic creations. Hopefully, that bodes well for the future of the doughnut purveyor's Outer Richmond shop, after the shuttering of its Marina location last fall.
"I didn’t realize the power it had over so many people until I started painting them and putting them in the window," Mercado told The Chronicle. Even the artist himself is not immune the to charms of a perfectly-made doughnut— he always buys two, in case one gets eaten during the artistic process.
Loading comments...