Steve, Thank You Immensely...I Know Where You're Coming From!
March 13 2009 at 1:36 AM
(Login jason.cinema) from IP address 24.165.52.159
Steve,
Bear with me here.
As a child (I'm 27), I can remember fond trips to our local Dunkin' Donuts (with the early '80s logo which was eventually changed) here in Savannah, Georgia. There'd always be bustling activity, both from customer and employee alike. There was always a group of older men talking in the corner, a cloud of cigarette smoke enveloping their heads, as they drank their morning coffees and nibbled on an donut or two. In this horrible land full of Krispy Kremes, Dunkin' Donuts was always the go-to place for me for hot donuts and the best coffee in the world. In the early '90s, it became a DD/Baskin Robbins.
The last time I visited was 2002, maybe 2003. I can remember it like it was yesterday. We had inventory at the job I worked at at the time and so our boss and I went in and bought two dozen donuts, milk, and coffee.
So imagine my horror when, in 2005, our Dunkin' Donuts closed after what had to have been more than 20 years. I heard through the grapevine that the owner wanted to pay less in franchise fees, so he joined up with Donut Connection, a respectable but very pale imitator. While their donuts were better than Krispy Kreme and their coffee merely passable, it was no match for the pure unadulterated bliss that is Dunkin' Donuts coffee and donuts. Long story short, the owner had to move the location, where it was essentially hidden from the main road and Donut Connection closed - it's now a Little Caesar's; the original Dunkin' Donuts location is now a Title Max title pawn place.
Every day I type "Dunkin Donuts Savannah" into Google News in a perhaps pitiful attempt to garner any new news of DD setting up shop in Savannah. I kept hearing murmurs of one maybe opening in an old restaurant but nothing came of it.
So they're planning five stores in Hilton Head, SC, an hour away, with one opening this year, and four more in the vicinity in the next year. However, the grey cloud here is that they say they're merely looking for franchisees to develop five stores in Savannah. And who knows, in this terrible economy, when (if) that'll ever occur? I feel like that song lyric from the title song from the James Bond film "GoldenEye"- now I know "how it feels to get so close, and be denied."
I sincerely hope some enterprising individual sees the potential here in this city, as I'm constantly talking to fellow Dunkin' Donuts fans who miss it or are transients who've settled here and never knew that we had one once upon a time.
It seriously pisses me off that Starbucks and Krispy Kreme litter the landscape here in Savannah like the offal they are but we can't get a couple of damn Dunkin' Donuts. Sure I've bought the coffee but it's not the same and seeing the commercials, which instill even more longing, irritates me even more.
In closing, I thank you again immensely for creating this wonderful place for fellow fans (read: fanatics) of Dunkin' Donuts to congregate and talk about the awesome culinary nirvana that we know and love as having the best coffee and donuts on the planet. You're doing an amazing job getting the word out and being a champion for our side. The green aprons can charge $5 for burnt coffee. The "other" donut place can sell glorified sugar globs. We know a place where the coffee's hot and flavorful, the best anywhere, and the donuts are delicious, fresh, and made with care and dedication. That's where we'll always be, in spirit if not able to be there in body. Because all other competitors are pretenders to the throne. America has and always will run on Dunkin', no doubt about it.