Meet Rachael Cholak, the girl with the doughnut tattoos

Rachael Cholak dreams about doughnuts.

She dreams about cyclops filled with lemon buttercream frosting, slathered in strawberry glaze and sprinkled with rainbow candy; Long Johns topped with maple bourbon frosting and pralined bacon; and, most recently, savory doughnuts rolled in melted cheddar cheese, dusted with crumbled tortilla chips and piled high with sour cream, pico and guacamole. 

Upon waking up, Cholak throws on a T-shirt and shorts and drives over to Mike's Donuts & Chicken, an American eatery in Kenosha featuring fried chicken and piles upon piles of sweet, fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth doughnuts. Once there, she gets to work bringing her dreams to life — mixing, pounding, rolling, baking and frosting.

With her bleached blond hair clipped back in a messy bun and powdered sugar lining her arms, she looks comfortable in the kitchen, at home. Her left triceps sports two doughnuts and a crown, tattoos that symbolize the nickname she adopted years ago: "Donut Queen." And yes, she prefers to spell it the colloquial way.

"I am obsessed with doughnuts.They are my canvas, a way to express my creativity, " Cholak said.

"I also eat around seven or eight a week," she added as she plunged a plain doughnut into a bowl filled with thick chocolate frosting. 

Every summer for the past four years, Cholak has worked as creative director and manager for Mike's, which her father, Michael Cholak, opened in 2014. But what started out as just a summer job for Cholak — who earned her bachelor's degree from Brown University in Providence, R.I., in May — quickly became a major part of her identity.

"Suddenly, I was surrounded by doughnuts, and it was so exciting to be able to create whatever I wanted and see customers come in and get super pumped about what I made," Cholak said. "Having access to doughnuts 24/7... well, it birthed my obsession."

By her sophomore year at Brown, Cholak was hooked. She brought her new nickname, Donut Queen, back to college with her and began advocating for a doughnut club on campus. Working with a friend who shared her love for fried dough, Cholak went to board meetings in doughnut garb and fought hard for the university to recognize the club.  Her efforts paid off.

"Now, the club is huge. It's like the entire school has joined," she said. "We have doughnut tastings once a month, but there are so many members that we use a lottery to determine who goes."

This past year, club members had the opportunity to purchase a special doughnut passport — 12 doughnuts from all over the state of Rhode Island for $10, sold by a Providence-based event organizer called Rhode Island Food Fights. Every weekend for three months, Cholak drove around Rhode Island with fellow club members, sampling new doughnuts and making friends. As "Presidonut," she was responsible for providing transportation. 

The outings also were an opportunity for Cholak to gather inspiration for her blog, the Donut Queen, and snap pictures for her doughnut-focused Instagram page. Having amassed more than 2,400 followers, the Instagram account (@racholak) is Cholak's most popular social media channel, although she recently started a Youtube channel she hopes will take off.

Her very first Youtube episode has garnered 87 views. It features Cholak on a steamy date, but not with a human — with a peanut butter and jelly crunch doughnut, whom she opts to call "Jay" for short. By the end of the date, she has devoured him.

It's not such a far-fetched idea. Cholak continues to eat doughnuts every day, even though many people working at Mike's can no longer stomach them, including Mike himself.

"I don't know why ... I just don't get sick of them," Cholak said, now sipping a pineapple upside down cake martini at the bar.

Half of the restaurant is dedicated to a sunny bakery and cafe, where customers stop by to pick up coffee and pink boxes of doughnuts. The other, darker half is dedicated to a bar, its shelves lined with bottles of Jameson. On both sides, customers dig into fried chicken sandwiches and sip sugary cocktails, like the Cinnamon Roll Latte (Jameson, RumChata and espresso) or the Jelly Donut Martini (cake-flavored vodka, blueberry puree and sprinkles).

Upstairs is another restaurant with a different concept, also owned by Cholak's father: Mike's Sportbook & Meat Bar, a man cave made up of a bar and a wide, open patio dotted with heat lamps.

Cholak said this combination of concepts pulls in more customers than either would alone. 

"With our place, you can get something savory or sweet, or both," she explained. "My dad, Mike, is really good at picking up trends. He loves to travel, scope out food scenes. Chicken and doughnuts might seem like a weird combo, but it's actually something we've seen pop up more and more often. "

Cholak hopes to continue capitalizing on the doughnut craze by opening her own shop in Los Angeles one day, called, of course, "Donut Queen." But for now, she's leaving her beloved doughnuts behind for a marketing internship in San Francisco with Ingenio, an e-commerce site that connects people with lifestyle brands like Horoscope.com and Astrology.com — "like an Ebay for psychics," Cholak explained.

"If it were up to me, I would run this place for the rest of my life," she said, looking out at the tables full of people.

"But I'm so comfortable marketing this place, so I want to step out of my comfort zone and gain more experience marketing something else."

And what doughnut will she miss the most? The Cinnamon Toast Crunch Doughnut.

"This is a cyclops dipped in plain glaze and filled with a dollop of cream cheese buttercream. Then it's sprinkled with cinnamon and cinnamon toast crunch cereal," she said with a dreamy look in her eyes. "I could eat that doughnut for the rest of my life."

Elena Weissmann can be emailed at EWeissmann@gannett.com and followed on Instagram and Twitter.