Morning Ritual
Are you a coffee drinker? Is it just a morning thing or an all day gotta have it thing? More importantly, where do you buy your coffee?
I was spoiled when I worked in Manhattan. The best coffee around was from the coffee cart outside my building on the 36th and Broadway. He was only there in the mornings, and was replaced with a roasted nuts guy around lunchtime. Sure, occasionally I bought a donut or cruller, but the real appeal was the coffee. I almost always had to wait in line in the morning to get my coffee, but the speed of which it was poured and placed in a brown paper bag was so quick that you didn’t mind if you had a half dozen people in front of you. Starbucks was a place I went in the afternoons to get out of the office if I needed to have a clandestine meeting or to do a phone interview. Dunkin Donuts was for weekends or if I needed to sober up a bit on the train ride home out of Penn Station.
Then I moved to Tennessee. I was astonished to find out that there was only one Dunkin Donuts in Knoxville. I wasn’t expecting to find street coffee, but I thought America Runs on Dunkin Donuts. Apparently, not in the land of the Hot Now Krispy Kreme. It seems like Pilot gas stations fill the need for blue collar workers morning caffeine while Starbucks rules the roosts for the cubicle crowd. Coincidentally, my morning commute takes me on a road that has both the one-and-only Dunkin Donuts along with a Starbucks. Some mornings Dunkin Donuts does it for me, other mornings I feel the need for a triple grand non-fat caramel machiatto. (I don’t like it “skinny” because the sugar-free caramel flavoring has too much of an aftertaste for me. ) I was fine with the 2 on the go options, along with starting to brew more coffee at home in the morning while I actually eat a real breakfast on my couch instead of something quick in the car or at my desk.
A few weeks ago the Dunkin Donuts closer for renovations. The building really needed it. It looked like a building that had been converted to a Dunkin Donutsinstead of actually being built to house one. It wasn’t until this morning, when they reopened, that I discovered the real difference between Dunkin Donuts and everywhere else. Instead of going through the drive through, I decided to park, get out of my car, and check out the inside of the newly refurbished store. It was clean, it was bright, and more importantly, everyone working behind the counter had 1 thing on their mind - speed. My coffee and muffin were in front of me, delivered by 2 different people, before the cashier, a 3rd person, even handed me back my change. While Starbucks closes down its stores for an afternoon to talk about refocusing on the customer, this Dunkin Donuts was actually doing something about it.
They’ve got great coffee that’s cheaper than Starbucks, but they don’t have their own social network yet. They’ve got a bigger selection than Krispy Kreme, with the breakfast sandwiches and bagels. At least the one here is really focused on their customer service. They’ve certainly come along from here. In spite of their choice of celebrity spokerperson, is Dunkin Donuts poised to take over your morning ritual?
Tags: Coffee, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks
Written by: chad
April 10th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Compare the speed that you get at DD with the time it takes to get a perfectly brewed cup just for you. Or maybe a shop that doesn’t use a machine for lattes and such and froths the milk by hand. There’s something to be said for those too. For me, the speed I get at DD doesn’t overshadow the taste I can get from 6 choices at Maple Grove Coffee on Northshore.
-Tim
April 10th, 2008 at 9:54 am
It truly is who runs/works in the store that makes the difference between Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks stand out. In my office, we has a Dunkin Donuts 5 blocks away from us, and a Starbucks about a mile and a half away. We always choose to go for the Starbucks, regardless of the time of day. It’s all due to the horrible service we constantly recieve at our Dunkin Donuts.
Many of my coworkers frequently got in fights with the Dunkin Donuts people about what they want in their coffee. Dunkin Donuts will not make lattes with half and half unless physically forced to, for example. So every time we went to Dunkin Donuts, where 3 of us like the sugar-free vanilla breve lattes, we would have to fight to get our drink. If the drinks were ever made improperly, the people behind the counter would argue that they made them correctly and would almost never replace/fix a drink. It was a nightmare.
When we finally made the switch and the trek out onto Route 4 in Paramus to the Starbucks, it was like a breath of fresh air. True, it’s more expensive. And true, it’s farther out… but when you can ask for a latte with half and half (or “breve” as I mentioned earlier) without a fight, it is truly worth it.
And whatever happened to John Goodman as the Dunkin Donuts celebrity spokesvoice? That was great!
April 10th, 2008 at 10:09 am
@Tim - There’s choice and then there’s convenience. In the morning, my “job to be done” is get my ass in hear. DnD fulfills that job just fine. Maybe in the afternoon I want quality.
@Tara - Seriously? Who goes to DnD for any kind of latte, let alone sugar-free vanilla breve? How was the service when you just wanted a coffee flavored coffee?
April 10th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I know. I work with a bunch of coffee whores. They are absolutely the people that Starbucks cater to.
But it’s like they say: Dunkin Donuts is a donut place. Starbucks is a coffee place. Where would you trust your coffee from?
And honestly, if you just want coffee flavored coffee: the person who takes your order at Starbucks takes care of that. So Starbucks, I’ve found, is even faster than (or just as fast as) Dunkin Donuts because the person who takes your order runs back, grabs it, and hands it to you instead of waiting to tell the person what size, flavor, etc. and waiting for the other person to get it. Same thing with the muffins.
Therefore, for just coffee, nothing extra: I think that it truly is a matter of taste, not a matter of speed. For the specialty drinks that DD is trying to copy: it’s a nightmare so give me Starbucks any day.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:26 am
I have to agree with Tara, above, that the ownership/management of a DD can make all the difference. I work in Boston, which means that there are 4 DD within a 5 minute walk of my office–in fact, there are probably more, but those are the ones I know of and can think of off the top of my head.
The closest one (and the only one that I actually pass on my morning commute) I avoid during the morning rush because they are slow, slow, SLOW and frequently mess up my order. They’re always friendly and happy to give me the cream cheese I /actually/ asked for or remake my coffee, or fix whatever it is they’ve messed up, but when I’m in a rush it’s faster to go a little out of my way than it is to brave the line and slow service at this particular DD.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:49 am
So, I take it that you have very little love for RR?
I am torn. I really do enjoy her, and was Team Rachael during the RR vs. Giada Iron Chef America… but at the same time, I suspect that she is fakey mcfake and secretly a crazy biotch. Just speculation though.
Regarding coffee, I didn’t even start drinking it until after college. It just didn’t do anything for me. The day I discovered that it cured that groggy/just woke up feeling was magical. Magical, I say.
And somehow, I went from being a tiny-teacup-worth-of-coffee-a-day person, to one-cup-a-day, to one-giant-cup-of-coffee-with-occasional-seconds… and now I am two cups of coffee EVERY DAY with occasional third and fourths. I love it. I just love it. And when I feel I’ve had too much, I’ll switch to decaf sometimes, just to be able to drink more coffee.
Also, I like both DD and Starbucks. Both mood and convenience will dictate my preference at any given moment.
April 10th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
@Shannon - There are a friggin million DnD in Boston. My GPS has their logo programmed in when one shows up on the map. The last time I drove to Logan the screen was littered with Dunkin Donuts logo. Crazy!
@dani - Not a big fan of RR or EVOO or any of her dozens of other catch phrases. I started coffee in college with lots of milk and sugar. Now I’m at the point where I can drink iced coffee black and hot coffee with just a minimum amount of milk.
April 11th, 2008 at 9:24 am
@chad - Regarding the coffee/milk/sugar ratios, I am kind of the opposite. I can forgo milk if need be (easily if it is really good coffee), as long as I have sweetener. But without the sweetness, it becomes not worth it for me.
At Starbucks though, I would say I put in more milk than my usual (and sometimes half&half too!)
April 12th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Jim’s Organic Coffee. I buy mine online and get it very fresh. Not as fresh when bought from certain stores. Best coffee I’ve ever had. Try the Guatemalan or some of the personal blends.
http://www.jimsorganiccoffee.com/
Also, I’ve heard that DnD adds caffeine into their coffee which help get people addicted.
April 28th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
DnD does a poor job of maintaining any sort of consistency with their stores (at least in Tennessee). One looks like a 30 year old 7/11 while another one looks like a space-aged donut haven. Their presence is weak in South as you stated. Starbucks has recently had some issues with chains losing their atmospheric grace that helped make them so popular and are currently trying to remedy the problem. DnD has great product, they just need to elevate their game much like that new DnD has done near Sherill. Make it appealing to enter the darn place. They have some of the strongest coffee too, so I think the caffeine enhancement claim may be true.
One of the edges for DnD is they don’t have to pay insurance for employees and pass it onto the consumer like Starbucks. While I’m highly approving of Starbucks ability to do this, DnD is ripe to have some pretty good days if they sharpen their store quality and concentrate on the basics. No one wants to pay $4.00 for a grande coffee right now.
DnD has added breakfast items and that has to be tough to push considering your name is synonymous for donuts, milk, and coffee only. I think their challenge is making people aware that their not just a donut hut, but that they have more to offer. When your name is as specific as DnD, I think it’s hard to re-brand it in order to fit a more diversified offering. Not impossible, but a challenge.
And then there’s poor Krispy Kreme. Most say that once Exxon started carrying the nappy glazed donuts, all the glimmer was gone. They grew too fast and made the donuts too available (a novelty food product?), therefore the Hot ‘N Fresh slogan went down the toilet. It was stale and smells like gasoline off the delivery guys gas pumping hand from then on. I don’t think management has really tried to recover from the meteoric fall from stomachs either and investors wallets.
So I think your right. They currently have 7,988 stores globally. I definitely think the south is ready for the taking, but it sounds like they have a big global plan considering they have a weak presence globally too. Their not publicly traded which probably accounts for the wacky discrepancies in store quality.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Love the blog guys/girls. Keep writing.
May 11th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I love the fact that Starbucks pays part-time people benefits. I think it distinguishes them from say a McDonalds or even a restaurant that competes with them. All great companies provide it in some form or fashion. I buy from them often for that reason. Pumpkin Spice Latte? Mmmmmmmm. Now, I will pay $4.00 for that.