On June 16, 2008, California passed its historic law allowing same-sex marriage. So my old friends Dave and Alonso, who have been together for 13 years, decided to get hitched. Since they’re both guys who love to eat, they chose to stage a quickie ceremony guerilla-style at the La Brea Tar Pits last Sunday, followed by a mass doughnut binge at the nearby Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts, a stall at the Farmers Market that has been an L.A. institution for more than 40 years.
The ceremony was brief but moving: I do’s were said, then the happy couple posed for pictures in front of the gurgling tar pits and got pelted with handfuls of bird seed. Stage 2 of the wedding officially began when the grooms and their 50 or so wedding guests got in line at Bob’s to buy cartons of very cold milk and famously just-made beignets, Long Johns, chocolate raised doughnuts, cake and crumb doughnuts, and the stand’s greatest hit: a crunchy, hubcap-sized glazed apple fritter.
Whether the doughnut makers at Bob’s knew their nuptial role or not, early that morning they’d baked a single-tier wedding cake: A friend of mine bought a Bismarck—a powdered sugar–covered, raspberry-jelly-stuffed masterwork of fried dough—and stuck two tiny tuxedoed men on top. When we first arrived, sleepy-eyed Sunday regulars seemed puzzled by the sudden swell of chattering patrons taking up space at the café tables in the open-air dining area. But the aura of matrimonial bliss, goodwill, and doughnut-love was so overwhelming that even strangers got into the swing of things. For the next 20 or so minutes, I’d argue Bob’s was the happiest place in all of Los Angeles.
Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts 6333 W 3rd St., #450, Los Angeles, CA (323-933-8929)
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