New England Trip #2
The first time I set foot on Connecticut soil was late in the evening of May 22, 2009, and it didn’t register that night on the drive from the Hartford airport to the home of Michael and Amanda Hyman in Avon. I didn’t consciously notice it the next day, a Saturday, or even Sunday. But by Monday it hit me.
Virtually every corner in New England seems to have a Dunkin’ Donuts. Coming from the Northwest that gave birth to Starbucks, I thought I knew what market domination looked like. I was wrong. Market domination… at least in the Northeast… comes in pink.
It is stunning. They are omnipresent. Every few feet it seems on any main street is another sign. And behind every second or third turn in the countryside you come across a gas station and another Dunkin’ Donuts.
I don’t yet have a clear fix exactly on what the draw is. The donuts? The coffee? Something else? People across New England rave about the coffee and the sign has a picture of a steaming cup rather than a donut, but then there is the name.
Yet I am not sure either the coffee or the donuts full explain Dunkin’ market strength. The coffee has nice flavor without a bitter edge, and the donuts beat plenty of greasy supermarket bakery types as well as clearly pounding the best of a competing regional chain called The Whole Donut.
There is still room for a mom-n-pop shops like Luke’s in the Farmington Valley to offer something high quality and unique, but it seems that it would be a huge challenge for any smaller chains or independent stores to take on the truly massive company. The puzzle for me is why they haven’t appeared to change their stores from the sterile, utilitarian, and often uncomfortable feel that seems designed to push people out the door rather than welcome them in. This might have worked in the past, but I suspect the future belongs to places that make people want to linger. But then it is quite possible their market research tells them something different that will remain viable. It certainly appears to have worked thus far.
S+
