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Voodoo Doughnut's first Taiwan outlet is open in Taipei as of June 18—the first outpost in the Portland doughnut chain's huge Asian expansion plans in both Taiwan and Japan.
It's the second Portland novelty doughnut chain to go east. Blue Star Donuts celebrated its Tokyo location's grand opening in April, and co-owner Micah Camden took the opportunity to look at girls' panties in vending machines.
Voodoo's Taipei store is in a ridiculously high-profile location, in the brand-new Songshan Cultural and Creative Park designed to "make Taipei the cultural creative capital among ethnic Chinese communities and serve as the basis of the city's bid for world design capital." The park is just down the street from Taipei's shopping and tourist district, which includes the Hyatt, an upscale shopping mall and, uh, Starbucks.
This is a major departure in style for Voodoo. Owners Tres Shannon and Kenneth "Cat Daddy" Pogson tend to open their American shops in goofball and low-rent 'hoods—the transient districts along Sandy Boulevard, 82nd Avenue and Old Town, not to mention Denver's infamous Colfax Avenue, dubbed the "longest, wickedest street in America" by Playboy. Voodoo's licensees in Taiwan—former University of Oregon students who fell in love with Voodoo's doughnuts in Eugene—are still keeping it real, however. They write in Mandarin (thanks Google!) that the flagship Taipei location is "next to Chong Wen loose tobacco in the park, the most pure hippie culture into Taiwan!"
Judging from the Facebook photos, the doughnuts are pretty much the same. Indeed, the Portland folk apparently flew over the secret Voodoo doughnut mix from stateside.
Though they're not involved in managing the Taiwanese locations—it's essentially a licensing agreement—Pogson and Shannon are with the Taiwanese in spirit. In an homage either eerie or touching, the Taiwanese shop has emblazoned the images of the Founding Voodoo Fathers into stained-glass windows on the building front.
WWeek 2015