Remember what Dunkin Donuts was before it became a mass produced chain?

DD used to be great in the 80s and 90s. By the early 00s they were mass produced, and focused on the wrong things. The quality of their coffee and donuts declined.

I remember their cereal in the late 80s

I hear you, comrade, I too remember when America was a paradise and all businesses were for the people.

That's all good, OP, but there obviously needed to be some control measures from watching the video.

They officially became jus' Dunkin' Jan'y '19, though signage might lag.

This is why you’re obese Op Ewwdwin.

The good old days, when each store made the donuts themselves.

I love a glass of coffee!

I think coffee and a donut sounds divine this cold, early morn'. I'll sit here while you fetch one up, OP.

Why the hell did they get into breakfast sandwiches. So ridiculous.

I remember. The plain donut had a little “handle” for dunking. The donuts do not taste the same.

R9, I worked at a Dunkin Donuts back in 1986 as my summer job. We were making egg sandwiches on croissants back then. We’d cook the eggs in a bowl with artificial butter in the microwave. They were gross but delicious. There was also a chicken salad croissant, also delicious.

This is why the world moved on to Krispy Kreme...

I will never understand the love the New Englanders have for DD. The doughnuts are a dense cake like monstrosity with no flavor and the coffee is flavorless swill. Nothing remotely tasty comes from DD.

Once worked at DD for 6 months. Never saw an eggshell.

I've posted this previously on the DL, but I remember when the Olive Garden first launched in the late-1980s and they HAND MADE their pasta -- it was a delicious, yellow, always-fresh egg-based pasta -- at big pasta-making stations (behind glass) right at the entrance. You'd walk in and there would be piles and piles of freshly made noodles, with chefs making more. Their sauces were also delicious and completely different than what they serve now. Their food was GOOD.

Now? It's all a mass-produced mess. I think the only item that hasn't changed from the dawn of the OG are the breadsticks.

Back in the 80s they served selections of really nice soups. You'd get a decent sized bowl, with a piece of bread and butter patty. Hearty and filling.

I really enjoy the pizza at Dunkin.

Someone said that they worked in a DD in the 80s and how they made their breakfast sandwiches… but DD didn’t start making breakfast sandwiches until the next decade… why lie?

R11 it’s amazing that your DD served a breakfast sandwich in 1986 when the first breakfast sandwich at DD was introduced in 1997! They didn’t even start selling plain bagels until 1996!

A big glass of coffee…right.

I ate a store-bought donut from a small supermarket in Costa Rica 3 days ago and I’m still thinking about it. It was that good. I’m guessing it was the trans fats.

They used to emphasize the freshness of their donuts. They would say- Made Fresh Daily. For the last 13 years or so on the rare occasions that I would buy some of their donuts they would have this burnt taste. My father once told me that's because they don't change the oil the donuts are cooked in. DD was bought by a private equity fund in 2004- That's probably when their donuts became CRAP.

R20 you said in Costa Rica. That’s not USA Supermarkets. Learn geography

R21 ummmm their donuts are no longer made in the store. That’s why. They used to be freshly made in the store. Now the donuts are mass produced in a warehouse and shipped to the stores.

R23- I didn't know that- how LAME.

No doubt there's a lot of cost savings. They might as well be a supermarket. In fact I would go to A&P when they were still in business and they would make their own black n white cookies and donuts.

[quote] I’m guessing it was the trans fats.

Literal violence!

Dunkin sold coffee and donuts, that’s it, for years. They used to make the donuts in the stores and had over 52 different types. They used to have some with whipped cream on top or jam. It was great. In 1972 they introduced their very famous donut holes aka munchkins, which led other places to start making donus holes.

During the 90s they switched to mass produced, and began introducing new items to the menu to compete with other newer chains, like Starbucks, which became huge when they introduced the Frappuccino in 1995. Dunkin actually introduced a cold brew a few years before that but iced coffee was never big then.

In 1996 Dunkin began selling bagels as well as their now mass produced, very few flavor, donuts. In 1997 they began selling breakfast sandwiches and introduced the Coolata. The re-introduced Cold Brew coffee in the early 00s, and introduced Iced Teas in 2007.

Im not sure when they started selling hot tea, but they did take it off the menu for a little while before re-introducing hot teas in 2016.

They were the first to make a mobile app where you could place an order and pay through the app, releasing it in 2012, when most apps for food places didn’t allow you to order and pay via app yet.

Before 1996, they were only coffee and donuts (and hot teas at some point).

I went recently and bought a couple plain cake donuts, and they were frozen in the middle.

R15, not to be too off-topic, I worked at Olive Garden in the late 80s.

The pasta station was front and center, and they made it all. The operator even had their own costume. They would walk the tubs of it through the dining room and into the kitchen. And it was delicious.

That famous dressing started with dozens of raw eggs in an industrial blender, to which they added half-gallons of Wish Bone Italian, and finished it off with spices and dried herbs.

It was always kept ice-cold.

Monetizing and cheapening every brand and product to squeeze out every dime they can.

It's a balancing act of how shitty and low can we go in product and customer service without going out of business. And almost every company has adopted it.

I fucking hate this shit - the rise of the MBAs and culture of the 80's has ruined a lot of things in this country and around the world.

r29 it also parallels with inane laws and aggressive taxation especially in major cities, the rise of lawsuit culture - it becoming more easy & accessible to sue (remember the lady that spilled mcdonald's coffee on her crotch?), and that many 'American' franchises are no longer American - which there's many factors for that but one large rooted aspect has to do with logistics & agriculture trading on pennies between states and other nations, the increasing rise in food cost and production along with the demands for seasonal foods. Albeit, we could also see this a natural progression outside of the lasting impact of the great depression and wartime conservation that lasted for several decades after wwii. . . which we also have to consider the psychological impact as well - which also extends to how our politics became so radically polarized but overall, some would just suggest it's the reality of prosperity (creating first world problems).

Scary, r19. You are a fucking freak, trying to fact-check a stupid anecdote and prove it wrong. I WAS mistaken. It was 1987.

Dunkin DID offer sandwiches on croissants. I made them. Squirt butter-flavored stuff in a little melamine pot and crack an egg into it and cover with lucite cover. Microwave. Slide onto halved croissant and a piece of orange American cheese. Did it hundreds of times.

It must be exhausting, being paranoid that everything everyone says is a LIE.

Krispy Kreme is no better. Most of their locations that "appear" to make donuts just defrost them. There donuts were second rate even before they became "a thing".

Pizza Hut was delicious back in the day. Fresh. Now all frozen.

I have overdosed on nostalgia now. YES, this is true. The donuts are terrible now. I had a better homemade one at a gas station!

[quote] Corporatism has ruined America.

No question. Everything is mass produced and cheap and shitty now. They’ve completely hollowed us out.

[quote] There donuts were second rate

I hate they're donut's, too.

The problem is that most people accept shit with everything sold. They don't stop buying. There was a time when major appliances were under parts and labor warranty for 25 years. Now you're lucky to get one year, yet people keep buying. If people stopped buying as soon as quality went down or sizes shrunk companies would go back to what things once were. Almost no one is willing to do without anything, no matter if it's shitty. The companies conditioned consumers to accept worse and worse and worse and consumers conditioned companies that they will accept whatever they do and still buy.

Our grandparents and great grandparents demanded quality and a dollar's worth for every dollar they spent. Companies knew that and did right by their customers. That ended by the end of the 1970s and the Reagan takeover of taking whatever was good in this world and downgrading it and killing all regulations and we're now where we are and it's going to get so much worse because companies now have decades of knowing no matter what they do people will still buy.

It's not just products. It's services as well. Did anyone stop flying because the seats got smaller and shorter and the food all but disappeared and the service sucks and they charge huge amounts for what used to be free?

The decline started when Dunkin' Donuts purchased Mister Donut (or was it Mr Doughnut?)

But what of Tim Horton?

Mister Donut. They were way better than Dunkin.

Their donuts taste like chemicals to me. I tried a Boston Cream about a year ago and threw it out. Their cold brew coffee, however, is like crack to me. The first thing I do most mornings when I get up is drive to the Dunkin' about a mile away and get one.

R41 I actually prefer their cold brew to Starbucks or Seattles. Their donuts do taste like chemicals now though. I ate two Boston Cream and it hurt my stomach and gave me heartburn.

Many of these chains are failing / declining now - fine by me. Remember when The Gap had quality clothes? I do - but it's been over 25 years. Pizza Hut is also having issues.

I'm perfectly fine with chains dying and local stores popping up again. I'm sick of the corporate consolidation and dime-squeezing.

Thank God things may be changing - maybe. But in some areas of the country - that's all that is left.

[quote]But what of Tim Horton?

That is a donut for cats. I see all sorts of cats on YouTube eating Tim Horton donuts.

pretty sure all dunkin stores still make donuts. And the freshness is still far above most chains. but if you say they used to be fresher, i believe you since the selection has gotten much bigger

So, should fat whores stop rejoicing?

R45 If you Google, people who work or have worked at DD confirm that the doughnuts are shipped frozen to the store, then iced by store staff.

It was always "corporate"

Corporations weren’t what they are now back then r48

It looks pretty corporate to me. The part I like however is the counter. How cool. It’s a proper communal space where people can feel connected to each other and the servers too.

R45 false. The donuts are shipped to them from a factory now and they freeze them. 30+ years ago it was dough and they had to make it themselves in their kitchen.

Also, there are less flavors and types now. Wtf are you drinking? There were 52+ different flavors and types in the 80s. Go to a DD now. It’s less than 20.

What does r50 think a corporation is?

It appears that R45 is posting from an alternate universe.

R37 I am so depressed for these reasons. I am depressed to my core. Is it going to be like this forever?

Remember when McDonald’s fries were actually made from real potatoes and cooked in non-vegan oil?

[quote]I remember when you could sit and have a glass of coffee...

Are you sure this was in America, OP?

Or did Krispy Kreme hire a Russian troll farm for an anti Dunkin Donuts online campaign?

R56 but it's true the donuts in Dunkin stores are all shipped in from their distribution center, Krispy Kreme bakes the fresh donuts inside their stores.

Good R57.

If that's something you really care about, you should go to Krispy Kreme for your "glass of coffee" and donut then.

R58 I am not OP

I don't care if you're not OP R59.

I was mocking OPs use of "glass of coffee" in my R56 comment. The comment was donut-opinion free, so if you're going to stick up for OP, you're going to get lumped into the "glass of coffee" crowd too.

Also, you signed your R59 post as R56. But I'm R56 so I assume you typo'd.

I used to love the "time to make the donuts" commercials. After being freaked out from watching horror movies on tv, it made me feel safe that someone was up in the middle of the night I could run to for help.

My grandmother bought donut holes from a local bakery back in the 60s, before it became commonplace. I remember going with her when it was still pitch black outside to pick them up for the family to have with breakfast. The bakery was near some chemical plants and a refinery. Workers would stop in for fresh donuts and coffee before starting their shifts.

I was fully unaware that they'd once or originally served their coffee in glasses!? I'm impressed, how Turkish of them.

The good old days.

R64 that’s recent

The quality is definitely going down. On the good side it has helped me curve my coffee addiction.

*curb*

Anyone who blames a decline in standards on "lawsuit culture" and cites the McDonald's coffee lawsuit as an example doesn't have any idea about the facts of that case.

Sweets for breakfast? The doughnuts are diabetes inducers.

r18 and r19 - really nasty behavior on your part. I remembered the sandwiches coming later too. I didn't jump to calling someone a liar. I also know there's stuff I dont know about, like how regional franchises and individual franchises experiment with new menu items to test out. happens literally every week at one chain or another.

I tried Mcdonalds Pizza once. Glad there's evidence of it on the internet or i guess you'd call me a liar too

Donuts always remind me of my circuit party days.

A Dunkin’ Donuts medium regular coffee (which in Boston means a generous pour with the cream and sugar) is delicious and the only coffee that makes me feel speedy.

Back in the mid 80s I used to go to Dunkins during work lunch hour. Most of their stores in New England at the time had sit down counter service and, for a brief time, offered 3 or 4 flavors of hot soup. It was a fast, inexpensive meal.

I've only been there twice, the first time was around 2010, I got hash browns and was disappointed to discover they had onions in them.