dunkin' donuts.
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For a region that is loath to allow a new
fast-food place to move into town, you would not believe how many Dunkin' Donut
shops
there are up here. I mean, literally, you could almost walk
across
New England and never be out of sight of one; the market is absolutely saturated. You
really have to see it to believe it; it’s not
unusual to be able to spot the next one from the parking lot of the one
you're just leaving.
These days, Paul Revere wouldn’t go house to house; he’d go from one
Dunkin' Donuts to the next (and probably pick up a Boston Crème
on the way).
One thing I hate about Dunkin' Donuts is that they have a policy of absolute anarchy at the counter. They usually only have two registers, but at any given time five or six people might be being served. There’s a hustle to move as many people as quickly as possible, which would be admirable if the end result weren’t so chaotic. I have a hard enough time deciding between a Bavarian Crème and an Old Fashioned without someone at the counter barking at me about coffee and the truck driver behind me in the mob pushing in for his mochachino. It’s definitely a New England thing, and even more so a blue-collar New England thing. Say what you will about southern waistlines, but I don’t remember donuts being this popular in the south. Maybe New Englanders are so worn out by the crummy weather, rotten traffic, and outlandish cost of living that they need that little kick of caffeine and sugar joy just to get by every day. Or maybe the fact that there's one on every corner makes it impossible to avoid temptation. And talk about a monopoly…you’d have to go back to the AT&T glory days to see a company with such a stranglehold. Krispy Kreme opened a few stores up here to much fanfare, but never really took off. Every once in a while you see a Honey Dew donuts, but they look like a mom & pop outfit by comparison. I mean, yeah, the donuts are good, but they’re not that good. Which leads me to suspect a mob connection. |