Pacific Coast Highway is like every road in Los Angeles: wide, meandering, permanently exposed to that California heat, and its route slices the heel of the city – all the way from Torrance through Long Beach and Huntington right down to Newport – in two.

Somewhere in the middle of that highway in Seal Beach, a small neighbourhood in the westernmost corner of Orange County, is Donut City. For almost 30 years since owner John Chhan and his wife Stella arrived as refugees from Cambodia in the seventies and bought the store, the donut shop has been a fixture on that long, sprawling highway.

There are no cronuts or muffin-nuts or Frankenstein-esque hybrid foodstuffs at Donut City. What John and Stella produce is simple, unfussy fare – sticky glazed rings; donuts iced pink and covered in sprinkles; hot buns piped with jam or dusted with cinnamon – for low prices. A glazed donut from Donut City costs just USD$1.05, or about 80p, and you can buy one seven days a week, all year round.

John and Stella usually arrive at the store at two in the morning to make and bake every donut by hand. By 4:30AM the doors open to the public. Every day, the donuts sell out by about three in the afternoon. But for the past few weeks the shop has been packed with customers, and John finds himself with a sold-out store by about noon. One weekend, he was able to leave at ten.

The heartwarming reason this donut shop sells out every single day