Is Dunkin Donuts a Coffeeshop?
Random thought for the day – so I was just thinking about our post about all the new coffee shops in the hood when it crossed my mind that we’d inadvertently left Dunkin Donuts off the list. Then as I thought about it more — Dunkin Donuts is not really a coffee shop. Is it? But … then again … why not? I mean, it sells a variety of coffee. Heck, coffee is part of it’s logo. And from what I hear (not being a coffee drinker myself) their coffee’s pretty good.
So what makes Dunkin the un-coffeeshop?
- Maybe the lighting is too bright to set the coffee shop mood?
- Maybe the bright pink and orange in their logo do not invoke the earthiness of a true coffee house?
Now clearly I’m not musing about the shell of a Dunkin Donuts at the gas station on Bedford and Union. I’m thinking about the snazzy new Dunkin Donuts with the outdoor seating on Nostrand and Eastern Parkway, you know the one my colleague, Ferentz, calls “the great equalizer.”
Popularity: 1% [?]
This is a really interesting question that’s more about the idea of a coffee shop as distinct from other places where ready made coffee can be purchased.
What I tend to assume people mean is some vague notion of "good" coffee mixed with a certain aesthetic of leisure. This can be played with a bit, for instance the local Pulp and Bean has no seating, but still has that coffee shop feel to it. Starbucks does this sort of thing better than anyone. We believe they have good coffee, and they have figured out how to project that "stay and hang out" feeling anywhere, even in a rest stop on the NJ Turnpike. Dunkin Donuts hasn’t quite mastered this yet. This is why the bright lighting and colors are disqualifiers. Despite its recent advertising efforts to portray itself as a coffee shop, it just isn’t. Dunkin Donuts grows out of the diner and truck stop culture, not the hip urban coffee shop culture and kind of fails in the cross over because that’s just not who they are.
I’m actually not surprised at all that this Dunkin Donuts has become an equalizing force in our neighborhood, but I think that this says more about consumer culture than it does about the quality of the space it provides. Dunkin Donuts is a well known national brand. Newcomers to the neighborhood probably had Dunkin Donuts in whatever town or suburb they came from. And for the city native, "Dunkin’ Donuts tops the list (of chain stores in NYC) for the second straight year, with 429 locations city-wide"[1]. People go to Dunkin Donuts because they know what to expect inside; decent coffee that’s cheap, and gooey sweet donuts.
I don’t want to understate the potential value of having a chain store with a pleasant semi-public gathering space. The shared consumerist familiarity with the brand can serve as an ice breaker for increased interaction amongst the people of the neighborhood. But I fear that its just as likely that to be people on laptops listening to iPods.
[1] http://gothamist.com/2009/08/19/nycs_chains_growing_not_even_killer.php
(The rest of the top five is also interesting but not shocking: Subway, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Duane Reade.)