The Kennebec Cafe

CLOSED !!! — now an indian restaurant at this location — no mo donuts
don’t waste your time driving here

Friendly, excellent bread, good breakfast fare and the made to order doughnuts are excellent.

I can’t believe I waited so long to come here, when it’s just down the road from me. First, the doughnuts. Oh my god the doughnuts. I haven’t had a hot, fresh doughnut since my Nana used to make them, and then the various flavors were just amazing. We had a tiramisu, candied bacon (with regular glaze, since I don’t like maple) and another one with chocolate and raspberry. They were so decadent I only ate half of one so that I didn’t spoil my breakfast.
I’d heard that eggs benedict was their specialty and that is no lie. Today there was a special for «warsaw benedict» that had kielbasa instead of ham and it was so delicious. The hollandaise was perfect and not broken, eggs cooked just right. And the hashbrowns, which I usually don’t eat at most places because they’re usually under-​cooked, were perfect here.
Service was prompt and friendly. Definitely going back.

This is really two eateries in one: a typical Maine breakfast spot, and a donut shop.
Each gets three stars on its own. The breakfasts are perfectly fine, but we prefer the Early Bird in Oakland for eggs, etc.
The donuts get three stars because some were really good and some were just too much. The best donuts are the simplest ones. The ones that are loaded up with toppings are just too gimmicky and not that good. I would go for the fruit-​flavored donuts above all else. Just avoid the ones covered in crap!

When a job offer forced me to relocate rather suddenly, and I only had one free weekend left, my New England bucket suffered some pretty brutal pruning (Sorry, Cape Cod! Adiós, most of Vermont! Maybe next time, long-​lost relatives in Mid-​Coast Maine!). In the end, the only thing left standing was a pilgrimage to Fairfield, Maine for what my friends at the Boston Globe referred to as «the most innovative donuts in the Northeast.»
When you tally up all the hotel rooms and gas and tolls and whatnot, the bill for the trip came out to something like $ 23 per donut… and they were totally worth it.
I’ve always wondered what a proper sit-​down donut-​based restaurant would look like, and the Kennebec Café may be the closest we will ever come to that ideal. Sure, they serve hashbrowns and French toast for the lame, stuck-​in-​the-​past breakfast fundamentalists, but donuts are the real draw. After all, you don’t seem them dedicating an entire separate menu to 58 different varieties of over-​easy egg, do you?
Speaking of which, the donut menus are scrawled on whiteboards throughout the cramped café, and options range from the self explanatory «S’mores» to the slightly more cryptic «Salty Dog» (salted peanuts on a chocolate cake donut with chocolate frosting).
Because they’re fried to order, you can order any donut on the menu at any time of day, a fact which should probably be on the front page of the Fairfield Chamber of Commerce website.
The variety’s intimidating as all hell, but it’s hard to fail miserably, especially if you’re hedging your bets with a full half-​dozen. One warning? Beware the pie-​themed donuts, as they’re generally just old-​fashioneds with a whole dump of pie filling on top, which leads to all sorts of sogginess and demands rapid consumption.
Not all donuts come on that old-​fashioned base, and batter offerings include chocolate, carrot cake, and god only knows what else. The aforementioned carrot cake was easily the most delicious donut base, while s’mores was the most excessively rad overall donut experience.
While we were there, almost every other patron in the place attempted to order a donut to go, and got shot down every time, because the poor donut chef could barely even keep up with the sit-​down orders. They were better off in the end anyway, because as my attempts to eat the leftovers throughout the day demonstrated, the $ 2 Kennebec donuts lose almost all their appeal when they’re not fresh. They sog up into plain, unappealing, non-​crispy cake donuts the instant you step out of the restaurant, and no amount of wacky bacon-​related toppings can bring them back from the brink.