A. Sadie's Donuts & Coffee shop.

Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show?

A. Somewhere in Miami.

Q. When did we see it on the show?

A. In Episode 10, "Go Your Own Way".

It is supposed to be the shop where Dexter stops each morning to buy donuts.

Miguel Prado, fresh from a confrontation with his wife (who caught him at Maria LaGuerta's house), assumes that Dexter has set him up, and being a control freak, Prado stages a confrontation with Dexter the next morning at this donut shop.

He tells Dexter that his department is investigating Dexter's sister, Debra (and her personal relationship with an informant named Anton), assuming it will allow him to blackmail Dexter into doing what he wants.

It doesn't work, of course.

Dexter simply escalates the battle by sneaking into Prado's house and stealing a ring, a souvenir Prado has saved from his murder of Ellen Wolf, and leaves in its place a ticket from a cleaners, where Dexter has sent the bloody shirt in for cleaning.

Q. What is it actually in real life?

A. A donut shop & bakery - but not in Miami.

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A. This is Colonial Bakery & Donuts, at the southwest corner of 4th & Pacific Avenue, in Long Beach, CA.

The address is listed as 355 Pacific Ave, but the entrance seen on the show actually faces the corner of 4th Street & Pacific.

It is right across the street from (south of) two other Dexter locations: the supermarket (where a child molester stalks Rita's kids), and the cleaners (where Prado picks up the bloody shirt).

The blue railings you see across the street, when Dexter enters through the donut shop door, is the train station for Long Beach's Blue-Line light-rail system. (That same station can be glimped in the supermarket scene, when Dexter & Rita are in the market's parking lot.)

They changed the place a bit for the filming, including fake signs painted on windows.

And they included a fake lead-in shot of Dexter getting out of his car near the ocean. This donut shop is in an urban area about a mile inland, so Dexter would have had a long walk from his car.

[ Be warned that this is a slightly scruffy part of town, so exercise reasonable caution if you visit. ]


( Don't confuse this donut shop with the Angel Food Donuts shop from earlier in the same third season - the one where Debra parks outside and sees Ramon abduct a suspect. That one is in Long Beach too, but a good six miles north of this location. )




I shot the photo below in 2009

Here is an aerial photo of the donut shop. And here is a map link.

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A.  I owe this one to my pal Tim Grobaty, a columnist for the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
Tim mentioned in his daily column (long before the show even went on the air), that the Dexter crew had been filming down at Colonial Bakery.  So naturally, when the show aired, I kept my eye out for that blue & white building.... (Thanks, Tim!)