Lil’ Orbits

I AM SO SAD THIS PLACE CLOSED! I have been to Lil Orbits many times since moving to San Diego 5 years ago. Never once was I disappointed. Today, when we drove by and I saw the «For Rent» sign on the door my heart broke a little. Farewell mini donut shop, you will forever be missed.
–A True Lil Orbits Fan

I read all these amazing reviews, & sadly. unfortunately…
Lil Orbits is permanently closed :’(
(giving 5 stars to not take away from existing rating)

This place is a small hole in the wall donut shop that is amazing! The donuts are dipped and made right in front of you so they taste very fresh and warm. Cant wait to go back!

Lil Orbits is a little cronuts and coffee shop in San Diego. I heard of this place from a friend who recommended trying it since I was visiting San Diego. I love having sweet pastries and one of my all time favorites is croissants. So when I heard cronuts, were a hybrid combination of a donut and croissants I knew I had to check it out!
I had went with four other people to get a quick bite. It is a tiny store on the inside and set up like your typical donut shop. There one one person working who was very friendly and helpful. We could have been confusing especially since we trying to figure out how to do the group order. The shop serves cronuts, mini cronuts (which you could probably eat in one bit) and coffee. I tried the lemon powered, strawberry powdered and chocolate cinnamon. They have a variety of flavors to choose from. They were ALL VERY AMAZING! Everyone in my group said it was great too! It is made right in front of you, so they are fresh and warm when you receive them! They are quite inexpensive too! They were $ 1.25 each to order one! They are quite small, so we each ordered about 4 – 5.
We truly loved this place that, te even went again before we left back to Dallas for a to-​go order.
The only thing that it seemed very difficult to split our order. The man at the register did not have a calculator and tried to compute the math in his head. He ended up wanted us to pay more when we were calculating it on our phone. So I would recommend having separate orders than doing one large order and attempting to split that. If your in the San Diego area and have a love for pastries, definitely check out this place!

This actually manages to transcend your traditional donut experience. I loved the crobits, especially the powdered chocolate and cinnamon chocolate ones.
There have been a lot of trendy donut shops popping up with wacky flavors and other schtick, but I have yet to find one that actually does anything remarkably better than what you can get at an average donut shop. Lil’ Orbits crobits actually manage to improve upon the standard donut. It is the best croissant donut hybrid I have had in San Diego, and having them served fresh is quite a treat.

Awesome customer service! We felt so welcome from the moment we walked in until we left. Our kids loved watching the owner make the donuts in the window. The batter was mouth watering and so yummy! We loved how it was made fresh and warm!

Not bad!!!
I came here because I read all the reviews and am always up for donuts!
The guy who worked was refreshing and knowledgable and passionate about his business. He made me feel welcome and even gave me a mini to try.
The only reason I took one star away was because of how oily it was… It squirted on my pants when I took a bite.
Other than that, it was warm and yummy!!!
Thanks!

Delicious! These lil donuts, or crobits as they are called, are perfect bite sized dessert. Even better with this cold weather. They are made fresh on the spot and are nice and warm. Next time I’m out in PB I’ll be sure to stop by and grab more

I had my first «Crobits» today. They are all freshly made for you, and come out hot and steamy, crunchy on the outside, with delicate layers of croissant-​like goodness inside! They are the modern day version of «cronuts», a hybrid of a donut and croissant. Boy, do they hit the spot!
This little shop has been a staple in Pacific Beach for a couple years now, and they’ve been making their to-​order-​donuts since then. There are many flavors to choose from. Strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon, lemon… to name a few.
You pick what you want out of a display case. Those are pre-​made only to show the finished product. You’ll never get one that’s not freshly made. Once you decide on the flavor you want for your itty-​bitty donuts, they are deep fried in just a couple minutes. Then they are placed in a small white bag with cinnamon, cocoa, etcetera, and shaken to coat the donuts while they’re hot. This results in the donuts being heavily coated with sugary-​rich goodness.
We got ½ dozen cinnamon and ½ dozen chocolate donuts. They are easily a one-​bite treat that delights the senses. We also got one crobit for each of us. The crobits are drizzled with syrup, depending on your choice of flavor.
We met the owner on our visit and he is the nicest guy. He aims to please, has high energy and is very proud of his business. The customer service here is top-​notch.
I like that he is open late, up until 2AM on weekends, so if you have late night munchies, you can get some here!
Go get yourself some donuts and crobits! You will be pleased you did!
FIVE FABULOUS STARS!!!

We met the owner who is a really
cool guy with something good
going on here and it’s very unique.
He explained how the process
works and I loved being able
to see him frying our order up
within minutes.
THE CRONUT
It’s a cross between a croissant
and a doughnut with powdered
sugar sprinkled on top and
chocolate syrup drizzled on top
over the powdered sugar.
This was my favorite one because it
had a texture similar to a croissant
that was crunchy and flaky and had
great flavor.
It’s best to eat these there when
it comes straight from the fryer
and they are nice and piping hot
that makes the chocolate syrup
nice and rich.
OMG! GOODNESS!
The owner suggested these too:
The Cinnamon Sugar Mini-​Doughnuts.
Chocolate Powdered Mini-​Doughnuts.
He fried these up in the fryer too
and put them into our two
to-​go bags separately so he could
shake 6 of them with
Cinnamon Sugar and the other 6
with Chocolate Powder.
My favorite was the Cinnamon Sugar.
I love that he has a display case that’s labeled what is what and it’s easier for customers to get a feel of what they’re getting before he fries them up.
He doesn’t take them from the
display case. These are for
display and everything is made
to order which makes it even
more delicious.
They have seating but it’s very small
and there isn’t any seating outside
either but I suggest to eat them there
if you can because they are best then.
They don’t have a private lot but
they do have street parking and
on the weekends the street parking
can be hard to find a space.
This location has been CLOSED.

Delicious! They fry the donuts as you order them.
I would recommend eating there, as they taste best directly after they’re made. Definitely
Coming back! The mini donuts are all divine.

Donuts and cronuts made to order? Yes please!
Here they are called crobits and they are TASTY!
We went with a few different flavors, they run just over $ 1 a piece and they have several different flavors, we went with strawberry and chocolate and they were ready in a minute or so and served with a smile.
Tiny shop, to go only, but very nice service.
So glad we stopped in, I will have to be back and get more next time.

You know what’s always good? Fresh donuts. Even if they’re tiny. And that’s precisely what you get at Lil’ Orbits. The price is a little high, but San Diego is in a severe donut shortage as it is. The cronuts («crobits») are also pretty killer albeit at an even higher price point.
Summary: fresh donuts = good.

Mini crobits!!! Suppose to be like a cronut for $ 1.10 each. On garnet ave. But is not a cronut but is a breaded donut. Its okay.
BUT if you’re looking for simple snack while strolling down the beachside area here of bars and such, this is the place. Not the type of place to sit in though.

For some odd reason I’ve been craving donuts for the past two weeks, so I’ve been trying to find bakery shops in SD. After coming to CREAM which is literally right across the street, I decided to come to Lil’ Orbits to check them out.
I came here on a Friday night around 9:45 PM. It was pretty quiet and no one was at the front desk, but quickly someone came out to help us. The man was friendly and smiling, but I can tell he was quite tired and a bit bored from the slow business.
The menu was handwritten in chalk, and the prices were also listed. They also had a display case with their donuts and crobits selection.
For a «dozen» of donuts, you can only choose 2 flavors. The most popular ones are cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar.
We ordered:
–½ dozen of cinnamon sugar
–½ dozen of powdered sugar
Pros:
–Good service! Nice people, without a doubt.
–Quick service! They have everything ready to go so once you know what to order, you get your donuts fast.
–Nice concept! I like the idea of mini donuts, since it makes you feel less guilty. Crobits are cute too!
–Fresh donuts! Yay for being able to watch my dough being deep fried into balls of sweet deliciousness.
Cons:
–A bit too sweet for me. For some reason I got a lot of powdered sugar, and it was way too overwhelming.
–Mediocre donuts. Maybe because I had CREAM before this, or maybe their donuts are really just okay finger food.
–Why is there soda? I don’t know if this place is opened by Asians, but I feel like if they had other drink options, it would make this place seem more legit. They do have iced coffee though! But what about lattes or milk?
–meh packaging. This is a place with cheap production, so they hand you your donuts in a small bag or two. One, this is not picture worthy and two, hot donuts get squished and bent out of shape.
Tips/​Observations:
–Seating area inside, but it is quite limited. You can sit in here and enjoy warm donuts.
–glazed (strawberry/​chocolate) donuts are more expensive and I think that is absolutely ridiculous. Glaze is literally just sugar and some flavoring! How can you charge extra for that?
Overall, I probably wouldn’t come here just for Lil’ Orbits. The options are quite limited, and I feel like this is more of last minute production idea. Great concept, but not very well carried out. In surprised they are still in business. Good luck to them but I wouldn’t waste my calories here.

Ah man. Yes to all of this. After getting an odd hankering for a donut and perusing the Unilocal,we rolled out of bed to try this neighborhood favorite. Folks– you don’t lie. The owner is super nice and these crobits are amazing. The tiny cinnamon donuts are fantastic, but we took home a dozen crobits: powdered sugar with chocolate sauce, lemon with chocolate sauce, and cinnamon chocolate. We disagreed on our favorites but agreed fully they’re all awesome. Can’t wait to get a bunch to take to the office!

You must try these donuts! I know, I have a doughnut problem haha I might even like them more than Homer Simpson
Where else can you stumble into a donut shop at 9PM on a national holiday and get served hot, fresh, made to order mini donuts?
The owner is extremely personable and very friendly. He made us some mini donuts and even threw in a couple extra for us to try. We got the original cake donuts with chocolate powder and a little cup of strawberry frosting to dunk them in… Tasted a little bit like heaven.
The prices are extremely reasonable. I think we paid a little over five dollars for a dozen.
Well worth it! We will be back.

Cinnamon sugar and chocolate with strawberry drizzle :))))))))
Get it !!! So
Good
Perfectly cooked to a crisp but still soft and yummy on the inside !!!
The owners are sweethearts!

We were wandering around PB one day and a quick Unilocal search for something sweet brought us into Lil’ Orbits. It was early in the evening on a Saturday so it wasn’t busy at all. The owner warned us, however, that it gets super busy the later it gets into the night. Drunk people love donuts!
Since we were the only customers we got all of his attention and he really talked us through the process of the donuts and explained a little about the company. It was fantastic.
We picked our donuts and our cronuts and watched him fry them up for us. I ordered a chocolate cronut and ate it on the spot. It was very good and very sweet. Maybe a tad too sweet for my tastes, but I tend to like salty-​sweet treats. A true sweet-​tooth would have found it the perfect amount of sweet.
I took another cronut to go and tasted a couple of my husband’s little donuts, which were also tasty.
The best part for me was the cute shop, the owner, and watching that crazy little fryer make donuts. We rarely come to PB because we generally like to wear shoes in public and don’t usually get wasted and take our tops off, but if we ever do wander into the area again I’m sure we’ll stop in for another bag of Lil’ Orbits.

Came here on a whim because my friend needed to get some coffee after getting our nails done on Cass St. Really didn’t know that Lil’ Orbits was known for their cronuts, but walked in because we saw it said donuts, LOL. We ordered two cronuts, both had powdered sugar and some chocolate sauce. I’m not sure how her coffee tastes, but I think it was pretty good because she’s an avid coffee drinker and she didn’t have any objections.
The cronuts, though. OH. MY. GOSH. They were wonderful. The perfect texture — exact mixture of croissant and donuts, obviously. They were definitely better than I expected and lived up to the hype. The only thing is, I wish they were a little larger based on their $ 1.10 price.
I’d stop by for another one if I was in the PB area.