Dunkin' Donuts Wants A Store On Every Corner

An emergency is an emergency, and this probably only happens when the goods are really fresh (via a reader / Gothamist)

Dunkin' Donuts already has the most franchises of any chain in the city (466 according to the Center for an Urban Future!) but that doesn't mean the regular joe's java joint is done expanding. Far from it. Yesterday the company—which just opened its 10,000th store—announced plans to double its U.S. presence in the next twenty years.

The chain, which has nearly 7,000 locations in the U.S. and has about 23 percent of the coffee and snack-shop market here (compared to Starbucks' 11,000 U.S. stores and 32.6 percent market share) isn't saying when or where the new spots will be, or when they will come. Just know, Munchkin lover, that they will (especially since the company says it has "finished streamlining its supply chain," whatever that means). You have been warned.

Look, Dunkin' Donuts is fine and all but we're not so sure the company can sustain the kind of growth they're projecting. Remember when you could stand on the corner of Astor Place and see three Starbucks? Yeah, now you can only see one.

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By Garth Johnston in Food on January 5, 2012 12:38 PM

Comments [rss]

Barbara Starkweather

In the early 1980's, I recall walking up Broadway from South Ferry to Houston Street, and counting 18 Chock Full'O Nuts stores. (On the stem and the ones I could see down the crosstown streets. There may have been more).

Nothing changes. Except that Starbucks doesn't have the best egg salad sandwiches in the world.

Inconcievable de Impublishable

Their microwaved breakfast items are pretty nasty. Don't order anything with egg on it there.

me4

I think Michelle Obama and Morgan Spurlock should shut down a few of them in high-obesity areas such as in the South Bronx.

It is a requirement that the only thing foisted on poor people are these pepto-bismol ghetto stores.

robingee

DD isn't ghetto! LOL

jibbly

Isn't it something like $1mm+ just to obtain a franchise from DD? I remember that factoid from an acquaintance trying to open one up in LI over a decade ago.

Dead Himmler

It's expensive but they do incorporate a monetary value of the intangible asset of constant police protection.

TheRealCannibal

is is just me or is every employee at DD totally, laughably incompetent?

Gothamist_Cynic

Yeah and most are run by Indians who failed at getting compsci and engineering degrees.

me4

Yes.

It almost seems like you *have* to not know English to get a job a dunkin donuts.

The second requirement is that you have to be angry and hate people.

YouandWhoseArmy3D

There really needs to be some regulation in this city about where/how franchises can open when there are already existing locations within a certain distance. It's beyond absurd (cough, subway sandwiches. cough).

ANGRYGOD11

The regulatory mechanism you want is called the free market.

ItchyGomez

It has become increasingly obvious that people are just way too stupid for the free market system to really work.

YouandWhoseArmy3D

Nah, thanks. I prefer to live in a 1st world country. You are free to go to Somalia though, I hear the free market is working great for them.

AuntySemantic

It should be called city planning.

robingee

The donuts used to be better, a lot of them are not baking fresh anymore. And the location near me never has any donuts! It's like 3 wire baskets with a lonely bagel and a couple of jellies. It's so weird.

But I always love the pink and orange!

Gothamist_Cynic

Yeah the reason their donuts taste like shit is that they don't have a very long shelf life plus they don't make them on the premises anymore. They're all made overnight by illegal mexicans in some factory in Queens then shipped to stores in the morning.