First of all, I want to get out of the way that the girls working the counter are great. Perfectly nice and helpful, they get 5 stars. Whoever manages this place gets ZERO out of five. I've lived in the BR area my whole life,eaten at every single Mary Lee's a dozen times over, loved every one of them. But not this location. This is the single worst one out of the whole bunch. They're light years behind Highland, Perkins, Florida, the Livingston Parish locations, put a finger on any other location and they are better, and for one simple reason. THEY DON'T SELL DONUTS.
I've visited at 5-7 AM before work to TRY and get donuts for my employees, I've tried going on weekends at all hours, rarely does it matter. You MIGHT be there when they have glazed and chocolate donuts, the basic components of any donut store, about 15% of the time. Busy, not busy, doesn't matter, they don't stock the cases! You'll have the option of about three things, a few kolaches, some random cake donut, and MAYBE some donut holes, but guess what, any other donut, twists, glaze, chocolate, fritters, cinnamon rolls, you're shit out of luck.
The kicker is, they have more employees than any other Mary Lee's I've ever seen, I'd say about four to five people dedicated to cooking and about two or three people at the counter. It's PACKED with employees, but these people don't cook donuts until they absolutely have to. You can go in, no donuts to be had, and they'll tell you to wait ten - fifteen minutes for them to cook them. What??? It's fucking donuts! You go in, grab it, and go! It's Monday morning people have shit to do! You're not a restaurant! You don't cook to order, you cook to stock! I've given this place at least a dozen tries to get it right, but I'm done with them. There is absolutely no reason to keep your shelves empty, I've been in there before with other people going to work looking to get donuts for their office and they've walked out just like I have. Even better, is that the counter workers know it's fucked up, but like any other job I'm sure they just have to put up with their bosses, and unfortunately their boss is a jackass who wouldn't cook a glaze donut to stock if their life depended on it. It's not even like their donuts are that good in comparison to the other locations. Their fritters are smaller, so are the cinnamon buns, the glaze ones come out a little soggy, the chocolate ones are about the only donuts they make consistently good at their brand's quality. read more