
Dunkin’ Donuts Aren’t in California… Yet? - kimboslice
http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2008/07/05/dunkin-donuts-arent-in-california-yet/
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zach
Wow, 3 points in an hour? Well, since at least three people care, there used
to be Dunkin' Donuts in California. At least they were here in LA until about
12 years ago, when they gave up on trying to crack the market.

The interesting thing is that in the LA area there's a former DD that
rebranded itself "Boston Donuts" and had the same donuts (but not the coffee,
sadly) ever since:

<http://www.yelp.com/biz/boston-donuts-la-habra>

Maybe there's such a holdout up north as well.

~~~
caudicus
As a Boston native, I can attest that people go to Dunkin' Donuts for the
coffee, not the donuts. That is the main attraction of the place - donuts,
bagels, etc - are all secondary. A chain that doesn't have the coffee is bound
to fail.

Here's another article talking about this - [http://www.lasnark.com/attn-los-
angeles-entrepreneurs-please...](http://www.lasnark.com/attn-los-angeles-
entrepreneurs-please-open-a-dunkin-donuts-in-la)

~~~
silencio
In regards to that article and many others I've seen: I know there's HUGE
demand for Dunkin' Donuts here. I would _love_ to open one, and it seems I
would meet most/all of their franchisee criteria - not to mention I'm shopping
for a business to either buy or open, franchise or not right now anyway. The
only problem is that they don't give out any franchising opportunities in CA.
I'm sure I'm not the only person who would kill to open one here. I could
think of half a dozen locations in LA where I could buy out an existing
business or lease a space.

So PLEASE blame the company, no one else. I wish I could just get that through
all those thick skulls (especially comment #8 on that link) that think you
just need to throw money at a franchise to open a new store so it's just a
lack of people interested in doing so. It's NEVER that easy to run/start a
business, and if the company says no, they mean no.

~~~
wallflower
I read an article in the late 90s in Esquire magazine about a businessman who
tried for _years_ to open a Krispy Kreme franchise in a new state. He loved
Krispy Kreme and knew it would be a hit. They refused. He visited
headquarters, wrote them letters, became friends with the secretaries. He was
persistent to the point of obsessive. He didn't take no for an answer. They
finally relented after (iirc) 9 years. It's a good article - worth finding on
microfiche.

~~~
silencio
I wish I was that dedicated ;) But I don't have years to spend (I have other
plans for my life at this point too!), this is a family venture, and there are
lots of other franchises and independent businesses out on the market.

Maybe someone else might be that obsessive about opening it, but I'm not the
person. I'm just pointing out though that it's not possible that people with
enough money and experience haven't considered trying to open a Dunkin' Donuts
in California lately.

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icey
I don't know enough about Dunkin' Donuts to know the answer to their situation
specifically.

That being said, a lot of food corporations own multiple trademarks / brands.
Sometimes when a corporation buys another corporation, a decision is made
regarding branding, and the geography of where each brand will live.

This is why you have Hardee's on the East Coast and Carls Jr. on the West
Coast. They're the same company, albeit with a slightly varied menu.

So, I wonder if there is a DD owned donut chain in California, and it's just
not common knowledge.

[Edit: I did a little research and it looks like that may be the case. There
are quite a few multi-national corporations with a hand in Dunkin Donuts'
corporate life: <http://www.dunkinbrands.com/aboutus/history.html>]

[Edit 2: Evidently it's not that complicated; Dunkin Donuts was in CA
previously, and withdrew in the late 90's due to market forces (i.e. poor
sales). I read an article that said in 2002 95% of their locations were east
of the Mississippi.

So, it looks like it's just economics at work.]

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silencio
I'm not sure this is such a horrible thing. I live in LA and there is no
shortage of good coffee shops of all sorts (I'm definitely not counting
Starbucks here, but I may be slightly partial to Peet's and Coffee Bean both
for convenience if I can't find anything else). I haven't noticed anything
terribly different up in San Francisco either.

Annnnd well, if I'm not making my own coffee at home (which I usually do),
I've fallen in love with the iced coffee at McDonald's. I don't like anything
there (except maybe the 60 cent ice cream cones), but that iced coffee is
mighty cheap and is pretty drinkable.

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ardit33
I think donuts wont be a huge seller in the bay area. It seems they are more
of a comfort food when it is cold, and it is never that cold in here. Plus
people are more health consious in here (SF is the slimest large city in the
USA).

Plus there are so many options for coffee. Dunkin Donuts coffee is mediocre,
slightly better than McDonalds. The only thing that they have is the huge cup
sizes. A medium DD coffie is more like a large starbucks one.

Anyway, I lived in Boston for three years, and moved in SF, and never missed
them.

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cubix
I'm surprised more people don't roast their own coffee. I've been doing it for
over a year now. It's easy, and buying green beans is roughly a third the cost
of buying them roasted. (Of course, you can make the process as technical as
you want, which would no doubt appeal to many here.) Most importantly though,
freshly roasted coffee tastes infinitely better than anything can buy at all
but a few specialty shops.

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defen
The worst part is that I see their commercials on TV all the time (in
SF)...Why do they lead me on like this??!

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bayareaguy
We don't have them near me, so I have to ask - is there anything particularly
good about them other than their donuts? Do they have WiFi? Are they open
24/7?

I find myself at Starbucks more than I'd like to for the WiFi and they close
too early.

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tlrobinson
At least we have In-n-Out!

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wallflower
Finally had a Krispy Kreme donut. I really don't understand the hype. Maybe if
I had grown up with them as part of my formative years?

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steveplace
A lot of their stores don't make their donuts fresh anymore. They have a
distribution network, and it's supposed to reduce overhead.

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far33d
Having DD again is one of the few things that has made moving from SF to
Cambridge more palatable for me.

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jdamon
I'm dying for some west coast dunkin donuts and starbucks doesn't come
close...

