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.

http://www.jimsorganiccoffee.com/

Also, I’ve heard that DnD adds caffeine into their coffee which help get people addicted.

@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.

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.

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.

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.

@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?

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!

-Tim