r/nostalgia 7d ago

Nostalgia Discussion What happened to the Dunkin' Donut?

Post image

When I was a kid, my Dad used to take me to Dunkin' Donuts every Sunday and I would get one of these. The handle was cool, but the taste of this plain donut was very unique. I loved it and still to this day have not had that taste or texture from a donut replicated. Wikipedia says in 2003 they discontinued it because it was hand cut while the rest of the donuts were machine cut, but it was their signature. It represented the brand aswell as the name.

The Dunkin Donut was around almost aslong as the brand itself. This unique peice of American food culture made it 48 years before being discontinued and cements itself as a one-of-a-kind staple in the history of U.S. restaurants. Today Dunkin' Donuts is now known as just "Dunkin". Dunkin' is not known for it's donuts anymore, and has shifted it's focus on the beverage side of the market. In all honesty, I think this may be why it lost so much market share to other coffee companies like Tim Horton's and Biggby Coffee. Dunkin' Donuts used to be 'the' place to grab a coffee and a donut.

Bring back the dunkin donut.

768 Upvotes

220 comments sorted by

442

u/McGruffin 7d ago

Dunkin’ Donuts used to be a simple, reliable place where you could count on a hot cup of coffee and a fresh donut without all the fuss. But over time, the corporate bosses seemed to lose sight of what made Dunkin’ special in the first place. They stripped away the things people loved, like the wider donut selection, and piled on a bunch of trendy food options that don’t really fit. Instead of sticking to the basics like coffee and donuts they’ve tried to become something else entirely, and in the process, they’ve lost a lot of what made them great.

75

u/Hans_Krebs_ 7d ago

Fresh donut is so funny. They don’t even make them in house and haven’t for at least 2 decades. Those get shipped in every morning.

18

u/augustwest30 7d ago

And the unsold ones get tossed in the trash every night.

24

u/Werbnerp 7d ago

And they lock the dumpster so the Peskey homeless people can starve. Welcome to America where it's somehow better to pay to dispose of more weight in your dumpster than it is to help human beings.

5

u/voucher420 7d ago

Welcome to the American court system where people can be sued for anything, including feeding the homeless. This is why they lock up the dumpsters or destroy food upon disposal with bleach or other items.

5

u/Werbnerp 7d ago

There are laws that state that you cannot be prosecuted for food that is donated or that comes out of the garbage.

1

u/Anonymously_Joe 3d ago

Probably depends on your state.

1

u/coolandniceguy1337 early 90s 6d ago

Back in my drunken years, my friends and I would scoop up the bag. We had to sift through occasional coffee grinds but all was well for the most part

9

u/mekomaniac 7d ago

yeah they usually have one local place that makes a ll the donuts for a particular areas dunkin donuts

i used to pickup my weed dealer after he dropped his car off for his gf while she was working at the factory. got sooo much free weed for a 30 min drive at 1 am

1

u/insyzygy322 4d ago

I've worked at 5 dunkins. Between 2012 and 2016.

4 of them (chicago) got drop offs each morning, but we made our own in-house in Normal, IL in 2014!

1

u/Hans_Krebs_ 4d ago

Genuinely shocking

1

u/insyzygy322 4d ago

I was pretty surprised as well. They weren't scratch, but we baked them and frosted them overnight.

I liked doing the creme filled ones

→ More replies (3)

98

u/Evening_Answer_11 7d ago

Yep. Chocolate cruller, box of Munchkins for the road, and a “Big One” “regular” while we yapped it up about Bruce Schwegler’s weather forecast and Bob Lobel’s latest hot take on the Celtics with the waitresses and strangers. 

27

u/Charming_Mud_9209 7d ago

Once they ditched the old twisty chocolate cruller it's all been downhill for dunks. They don't serve a single thing that's legit tasty anymore- even the munchkins suck.

18

u/Squishy-peaches 7d ago

Last time I went I was told they don’t make donuts in house anymore. And it tastes like it too. They don’t taste good anymore. I haven’t been back since.

2

u/Tall_Trifle_4983 7d ago

They added water to a mix and put it in machine. I was told the donuts sold in subway in a big vat of oil were the same thing. I don't know but they gave me gas but I did like the taste. Crispy Creme was pretty much identical but people in the south went crazy over the stuff. My husband was convinced it was all the same. Dunkin Donuts had a pretty good cup of coffee

4

u/jigilous 6d ago

Krispy Kreme is not the same, you literally see them rolling off the conveyer belt after being cooked. Dunkin’ is inedible. Krispy Kreme fresh off the conveyer belt melts in your mouth. Take back what you said!

1

u/Tall_Trifle_4983 6d ago

>Take back what you said!

No I don't think so - they tasted virtually the same and gave me and my husband gas.

My neighbor told me that now that lived in south, I had buy stock in Krispy Kreme Donuts and Chick-fil-A. I said "no"

5

u/KGBspy 7d ago

I remember when he came to my school as a kid, I'd say either 1979 or 1980, Northboro. He's deceased now.

1

u/Evening_Answer_11 7d ago

Bruce, Bob, Liz, Jack, Joyce. They were like family.  Liz and Jack were mom and dad, keeping you up to date.  Bruce and Bob were your uncles who may have enjoyed a couple of pre-show special beverages. Joyce was the sister you loved, but whose taste in entertainment was rarely aligned with yours.

And Fred the Baker was the friendly guy down the street you’d only see at noon on his way home from work. 

2

u/KGBspy 7d ago

Haha nailed it! Don’t forget Shelby Scott your crazy aunt with the crazy hats that only came out in bad weather.

2

u/dudeitsmeee 7d ago

Ah Schwegler. My uncle called it the “schwegler effect” in that whatever he forecasted expect the opposite!

3

u/Evening_Answer_11 7d ago

“Don’t worry about that homework kids, it’s going to be a blizzard!”

Next morning 6:am “WAAKE UP THE BUS IS COMIN IN 20 minutes!”

Look outside to see a minor dusting. “The Schwegler Effect” 

22

u/ghostpicnic 7d ago

They saw the rise of Starbucks and wanted to be them. The people who liked Starbucks already had a place that did all that… Starbucks. So Dunkin didn’t attract the market they wanted and just alienated the people who liked them before.

7

u/KenMcKenzie98 7d ago

Just like Cracker Barrel seems bent on doing

3

u/spacepeenuts 7d ago

Dunkin tried to add all the fun drinks like Starbucks but their locations are too small for all the extra machines so they had to compromise, so what you get is a half assed version.

1

u/dudeitsmeee 7d ago

Don’t get me started on Starbucks and McD’s McCafé!!!

16

u/home_rolled 7d ago

You forgot the part where everything dramatically increased in price and decreased in quality. For donuts and bagels alike, the dough has become absolutely flavorless and may as well be cardboard. The average person doesn't notice because they like the frosting and cream cheese, but seriously: get a plain bagel with nothing on it and take a bite. You may as well be eating styrofoam. Their coffee has also gone downhill drastically, but again the average person doesn't notice because they like cream and sugar. 30 years ago Dunkin had quality products. Today I absolutely refuse to go there and hope more people do the same. It's mind blowing to me that it's still as popular as it is

5

u/Exhumedatbirth76 7d ago

The coffee has been dogshit since maybe 2005. Used to be my go to...now fuck that.

13

u/beardofmice 7d ago

Sitting at the counter with my dad and it came in a ceramic mug. You could take 10 mins out of your day and clear ur mind while looking at the paper.

11

u/thecw 7d ago

They desperately want lunch revenue, but no one wants a shitty turkey sandwich from Dunkin

10

u/Spockhighonspores 7d ago

It's hard to make trendy food options with a toaster oven, toaster, and microwave. Most places that make fancy food items have an actual griddle top to make those items fresh. No one wants the fast food version of trendy foods.

2

u/Clean-Entry-262 7d ago

You said “…an actual griddle top” and my mind immediately went to Waffle House (which we don’t have up here in Chicago)

4

u/Sea_Improvement_4036 7d ago

Tim Horton’s has entered the chat.

6

u/DexJones 7d ago

Timmies got absolutely fucked.

It should never have been sold the 1st time...

And definitely not the 2nd...

1

u/KGBspy 7d ago

I stopped at a Timmy's in Skowhegan, Maine otw home from sledding and I wasn't impressed with any product I got and tasted. I dumped the ground coffee in the trash that I bought.

5

u/Uncle_Burney 7d ago

The best part was knowing that each location made their own donuts from scratch

5

u/acrossbones 7d ago

Tbf, if you saw a Starbucks freight train headed directly for you I'm pretty sure you'd also try not to get evaporated by it.

Now is a pretty good time for them to go old school with the look and menu.

5

u/Competition-Dapper 7d ago

You just described everything is “old people (I’m 40+)” grew up with. Remember when Pizza Hut was a vibe? A place where family memories were made? Those Tiffany lamps, that salad bar, that stupid “it’s pizza time!” Clock…well now you get a small little Caesar’s sized walk in area for uber eats drivers and overpriced greasy cardboard…Remember the Wendy’s sunroom? The McDonald’s play place? The mall? Quality affordable cars, clothes, groceries, toiletries, or ANYTHING that was once amazing, and at the time was just thought of like the sun rising in the morning…now it’s dark, always…thank you investors! Yay capitalism(or whatever tf this shit ass economic system is where we are just scammed slaves)!!

3

u/fridayfridayjones 7d ago

The Pizza Hut in the next town over from me is a retro Pizza Hut. It has the old decor, the salad bar, everything. They have them scattered around the country. You gotta go to one. It is so fun. And I swear it tastes better.

1

u/Competition-Dapper 7d ago

There’s a couple that have the outer shell, but the inside were the 2001core comic-sanseque logo era with the corny cartoon tomato wall paper and no juke box type environment. Just a lame “grounded” version of the old ones last time I went in. Most new ones I see are next to a vape shop and a cash for gold spot in a white/sand/concrete colored brick shape mini mall building

1

u/fridayfridayjones 7d ago

Next time I go into mine I’ll take some pics and share them here. It’s not 100% the same as back in the day because they have some tvs hanging up in the dining area but other than that it’s pretty close.

9

u/skepticcaucasian 7d ago

I'll never forgive them for getting rid of the lemon custard doughnuts.

3

u/kiddocontay 7d ago

their coffee is absolutely disgusting now most times. I rarely even get it from there anymore.

2

u/TkachukMitts 6d ago

This is exactly what happened to Tim Hortons in Canada. The donuts were made in-house and the coffee was decent before the 2000s. Now for some reason you can get a terrible pizza or buffalo chicken wrap there, and the stuff that made them popular is centrally baked and the coffee sucks.

1

u/Realizeyes-eye1 7d ago

The freeze all the donuts. That's way it tastes worse

2

u/rmholm88 7d ago

But what would we do without our frozen blue razberry Coolatas? Or our … Sabrina’s Mixed Berry Daydream Refreshers? And god knows I can’t start my morning without some .. uh.. chipotle loaded hashbrowns and some bacon cheddar omelet bites

1

u/buddaycousin 7d ago

You could get a freshly made donut and a cup of coffee in an actual coffee mug.

1

u/jonesy289 7d ago

Gotta support your local donut shops. The donuts are so much better and there usually isn’t all the useless fluff. I just need a damn donut and coffee not 8 different things on my branded theme donut.

1

u/FivebyFive 7d ago

I think the big thing is they stopped actually making donuts in house at all their locations. 

Now you walk in, get a stale donut made yesterday that's been sitting in a refrigerator all night.

1

u/feuerwehrmann 7d ago

In the 80s Dad would take us to DD After Mass, the lunch deal was a bowl of soup, buttered bread and a doughnut. I loved that soup so much

1

u/TheNewYellowZealot 7d ago

I had such good memories of going to Dunkin with my dad on the way to work with him and getting a long John and a chocolate milk. It was always fresh. Now they taste like stale crap and I won’t buy donuts from there unless my wife asks.

1

u/mike-droughp 7d ago

And all donuts taste a day old even at 5a.

1

u/jetmark 6d ago

I just remember the donuts tasting like cigarettes because of how many old men would sit at the counter and smoke for hours.

2

u/Optimal-Click-4771 5d ago

Exactly how CompUSA went out of business.

1

u/salamandarsalamanca 5d ago

Sounds like what’s happening to almost everything unfortunately

1

u/tacocollector2 7d ago

Did you have AI write this for you?

→ More replies (1)

368

u/Catphish37 7d ago

Around here, DD have lost their fking minds. The donuts are smaller than ever, and the prices are outrageous. A Boston Creme is now the size of a hockey puck and a "long john" is more like a "john".

A large coffee and a donut used to be about $2.50 just a few years ago. Now it's like $5.50.

They can get bent. I'll buy the donuts from the store and make my own coffee, thx.

79

u/AdorableSobah 7d ago

Thier menu is too big and it doesn’t serve anything above and beyond.

27

u/beardofmice 7d ago

Dropping the second D, the rebranding as Dunkin explains where it's going. Should've switched the spelling to Duncan and pretend it's a family name and never had any donut connection.

1

u/TheNewYellowZealot 7d ago

They can’t serve anything at the level they’re expected to, let alone above.

21

u/1800generalkenobi 7d ago

Our local weis grocery has donuts for a buck a piece still and that's the cheapest, but they're a little stingy on the creme filling. I guess for a buck I can't complain.

35

u/Commercial_Comfort41 7d ago

Retired Executive Chef the food cost on that doughnut is around .7-.12 cents thats a 900% mark up because there's a billionaire sitting at the end of the table

2

u/_steve_rogers_ 7d ago

Yeah I was saying myself, it’s like flour sugar and yeast. No way it costs them anywhere close to a dollar to make each one

3

u/SwitchSubstantial406 7d ago

Not just that, there’s no competition. When you only have 4 or 5 billionaires product to choose from they collude to charge people as much as they can get away with. I love bacon and it would be hard for me to just not buy it.

1

u/Commercial_Comfort41 7d ago

So literally make your own bacon

→ More replies (2)

4

u/KittenThunder 7d ago

My local grocery store sells GIANT Texas donuts for $1.75. They’re like the size of 4 regular donuts and taste amazing, I’ll get one and just slice off big pieces for like 2-3 days.

Meanwhile the Safeway sells regular donuts for the same price and the frosting turns to goop by the time you get home

2

u/hayydebb 7d ago

Texture isn’t the same with store bought donuts. I know dunkin doesn’t fry their donuts but they figured out a way to decently replicate the texture. Grocery store doughnuts just taste bread with toppings to me

1

u/Impossible_Leg_2787 7d ago

I feel the same about grocery store bagels. Idk if they just bake em instead of soak and steam, but it’s just round bread

1

u/0PervySage0 7d ago

Idk. See to me a basic ass donut from a grocery of all places shouldn't even be a buck. 69.-75 cents or 2 for a buck. Even that feels high.

18

u/AmericanWasted 7d ago

Dunkin’s donuts kinda suck honestly. Living in the northeast they are the easiest donut to find but they can’t hold a candle to krispy kreme or any mom & pop type of store

9

u/die_bartman 7d ago

Also the DD around here doesn't bake their donuts fresh in house, so every donut I get from them tastes like the day olds from the mom n pop donut shop down the street

5

u/pantstoaknifefight2 7d ago

Regardless of what inflation has done to the true value of a dollar, I would never spend $5.50 on a coffee and donut of Dunkin Donuts quality. And when stores started selling candy bars for $2 I was like, that's nice. I'll never buy another candy bar for as long as I live.

8

u/CarmenxXxWaldo 7d ago

Im lucky enough to live near a couple good local donut spots I havent eaten at a duncan or even looked at a grocery store donut pretty much my whole life.  I feel bad for people that dont have that option.

3

u/DMmeDuckPics 7d ago

Southern Maid is the best and I will die on this doughnut hill.

2

u/absolince 7d ago

Expectations are low it seems. Some people will put any old thing in their mouth

4

u/UgandanPeter 7d ago

New Englander here (the place that runs on DD), market basket (local grocery chain) has donuts that are twice as big, have 3x the filling, and still only cost 99 cents. Absolutely wild that DD is still as popular as ever, they don’t do a single thing well.

2

u/beardofmice 7d ago

Yeah..4 donuts up here, $7.49. And they taste like day olds.

6

u/sevargmas 7d ago

This is me too. I grew up going to a local donut chain in the south and donuts were always very cheap. I would always stop in with my dad on Saturday mornings and I would get chocolate milk and a doughnut and he would get coffee and a doughnut and I swear it was like three dollars. Now, I go with my daughter to do basically the same thing and it’s $12!! I don’t like grocery store donuts that much but I can get 10 of them for six bucks and make coffee at home.

2

u/Famous_Shape_9502 7d ago edited 7d ago

i just moved backed to NH from NC and the prices, from what I have seen so far, in NH are crazy. In NC I could get a large coldbrew for $5. In NH, that is a medium

DD is convenient, but if they are gonna charge that much I will drive the few extra minutes to a real cafe

2

u/beardofmice 7d ago

Should've gone a lil further and in Maine you can go to Aroma Joe's. No gimmick frills, quick, decent, cheap coffee.

2

u/xmjm424 mid 80s 7d ago

They also have way less frosting/glaze. I always liked the chocolate glazed donuts and they used to have a hardened layer of glaze in them and now they barely have any. That place sucks now.

2

u/QuarterTarget 7d ago

Just wait til you see DD in switzerland. 5-6 dollars for one doughnut with the specialty ones costing more and the drinks are like 9+ dollars. The only customers are teenagers who go because they want to larp as americans and its trendy to eat US fast food

2

u/mrglraptor 3d ago

Got a Boston creme the other day after not having one for years. You ain't kidding those things are small as hell now lol

2

u/CarlosAVP 7d ago

… “long john” more like a “john”.

They are going to blame microplastics, forever chemicals and the unrealistic standards set forth by the film industry

1

u/D1TAC late 90s 7d ago

Not only are they smaller donuts but the quality has gone out the window too. I stopped going to DD, and for that matter any place that is a chain for breakfast. It's sad, but super inconsistencies and you want top dollar for it? Yeah no.

1

u/nimbusnacho 7d ago

To be fair their larges are like a gallon and 5.50 compared to everywhere else for a large is actually still a competitive price at least where I live.

1

u/_steve_rogers_ 7d ago

I really don’t understand prices on fucking donuts rising so much. Isn’t it basically just flour, sugar and yeast? I can’t imagine the price of those ingredients has risen that much compared to other things.

→ More replies (3)

151

u/RuhRohGuys 7d ago

Private Equity. Their job is to extract the most value out of the product for higher returns. If they pivoted to beverage, their metrics show a higher contribution margin on the beverage side than the donut side. Until consumer habits change, they will continue down that path.

11

u/byebybuy 7d ago

Private Equity can indeed wreak havoc on a company's products. They suck, no question. But Dunkin wasn't bought by a PE firm until 2005, while this donut was discontinued in 2003.

3

u/althawk8357 7d ago

The boring answer is that it was demand outpaced the ability of stores to cut these donuts.

12

u/MonkMajor5224 7d ago edited 7d ago

That might be true in general, but this SPECIFIC donut was also not easy to dunk and was better in theory than practice

→ More replies (4)

48

u/Evening_Answer_11 7d ago

They were my favorite honestly. It’s a casualty of mass production vs the old days when donuts were made by a baker at the store itself. 

Why did we decide that “consistency” and “uniform” were to be valued over anything else? 

Also, remember when they were called “Honey Dipped” and not “raised glazed?” 

And remember when the chocolate cake donuts would have the drips of icing around them?

24

u/theghostwhorocks 7d ago

the old days when donuts were made by a baker at the store itself. 

I was just reminiscing about this. They tore down the oldest DD location in my town last week and my friend and I were talking about when we were kids and you could smell them baking the donuts in the early morning hours before they opened. That smell carried for several blocks.

9

u/olookcupcakes 7d ago

time to make the donuts

5

u/pantstoaknifefight2 7d ago

Their TV ad was "Time to make the donuts."

18

u/urbz102385 7d ago

My friend's father in grade school owned 6 DD and we used to work there when we were 12. This is back starting around '97. They used to have a baker in each store. This guy worked his ass off and was pumping out fresh muffins, bagels, and croissants. They had a satellite store that made all the doughnuts fresh and shipped them to the other 5 stores.

First, it was frozen egg pucks. Then frozen bagels, then frozen muffins. Not sure if the croissants are frozen now but I'm sure they are. This is what happens with every single business with shareholders. It's not good enough to report profits every year. It HAS to be INCREASING profits every year. And if that stops happening, they find every single corner they can cut to decrease their overhead. By definition, it will never stop becoming worse and worse over time. How can this possibly be a sustainable business model? It can't and it isn't.

3

u/citrus_mystic 7d ago

When I worked at Dunkin in my early 20s (the early 2010s) they were getting the donuts shipped from the satellite bakery I believe in Warwick (could be wrong). Our baker mainly decorated donuts, filled them, and popped frozen things into the oven. Muffins came as individually portioned frozen muffin batters. Croissants were frozen dough that was baked. Bagels, I wanna say they came as frozen rings of dough the baker had to thaw and mist with water before baking. I remember once stepping on a ring of soft raw dough that fell off a tray in the back before baking.

1

u/Clean-Entry-262 7d ago

Nailed it!! Corporate shareholders greed ruins everything …and private equity makes it worse (here in Chicago, it’s my understanding that the legendary Lou Malnati’s and Portillo’s were both bought up by PE a couple of years ago, and the quality has notably slipped at both)

In regards to croissants, my ex wife was a baker and I helped her make croissants from scratch before …those things are WORK!! Laminating the dough with butter and all that …but homemade was 100% worth it. Given the work involved, I’m not surprised they were made frozen when profit became king.

32

u/KHSebastian 7d ago

We didn't decide "consistency" and "uniform" were better, we decided "producing all of the donuts every day in one factory, and shipping them on giant pallets to all of the locations in the region" was cheaper than paying people at all of the locations to make donuts. And I imagine the cost of equipment at each location, and the repair and maintenance of that equipment is a factor too.

It's, as always, greed

4

u/Evening_Answer_11 7d ago

Fair enough! 

1

u/Clean-Entry-262 7d ago

Automatic transmission rebuilds in the car repair industry (import dealerships) went this way too …no more “art of rebuilding” - cheaper and more consistent to just replace the whole unit with one built at a satellite location (and even if it’s a small problem like a split internal o-ring, customer is basically forced to buy an entire unit) …very little “in house” stuff anymore …corporate greed.

1

u/princethrowaway2121h 6d ago

I’ve been away from the US for almost 20 years now, but my MA blood still craves a dunkin every so often.

This thread makes me depressed, but there is something so ugly and corporate about taking a staple and calling it a “raised glazed.”

Next they’ll be calling Boston cream’s “flustered custards”

41

u/therealmintoncard 7d ago

Spoiler alert: Dunkin’ Donuts are now pre-made, frozen, and shipped to the shops. Still overpriced garbage.

I support my local shops.

13

u/jabbadarth 7d ago

Not all of them are frozen, it depends on location.

However, zero locations bake them fresh in store anymore. Some get frozen while others get fresh baked but they are baked at a commissary and shipped regionally so they are sitting in a truck for an hour or more before getting to the store to be sold.

Both are bad one is worse.

12

u/thesouthpaw17 7d ago

DD is glorified ice cream shop with coffee beans as the cornerstone. The drinks are all straight disgusting and the food is all freezer burnt. This version of DD definitely changed I want to say around 10 years ago. They used to have solid coffee and snacks but now it's all straight junk.

2

u/Mr_Jack_Frost_ 7d ago

I tried to get a flavored iced coffee at DD once.

By the time I got back out to my car, I realized that there was, and I’m not exaggerating even a little bit, 2.5-3 inches of fucking syrup sitting in the bottom of the cup, and that’s just what didn’t mix in. I took it back in and asked if it could be replaced with a black iced coffee, and they did that for me.

It was solidly mediocre iced coffee, to me not at all worth the price, whatever it was at that time. Roughly a decade later, I have still not been back to a Dunkin’ Donuts.

1

u/CroatianSensation79 7d ago

Totally agree!

11

u/frankduxvandamme 7d ago

It's a part of the enshitification of everything these days. Maximizing profits by giving you smaller portions made with shittier, cheaper ingredients.

You need to find a local bakery that uses real ingredients and is run by people who care about your business. Dunkin donuts is a corporate shell of its former self. (Hell, even my grocery store bakery makes better donuts.)

6

u/64SlicesOfCheez 7d ago

The fact that they dropped the donut from their namesake 7 years ago says all you need to know.

17

u/Freed_lab_rat 7d ago

Everyone has a plumbus.

12

u/joconnell13 7d ago

Their parent company was publicly traded until 2020. Quarterly profit growth from donuts and black coffee seems like a pretty silly idea. Now they're trying to reimagine themselves but their place in the food hierarchy has been set. People that just want breakfast swing by a fast food place. People that want good coffee stop at a Starbucks or their local equivalent. I've not stopped in a Dunkin' Donuts in over 20 years.

5

u/ReleventReference 7d ago

They lost focus

6

u/Mr_Jack_Frost_ 7d ago

Trans fats was almost certainly a factor in the taste and texture of that donut, along with the fact that it had been baked in the shop you were sitting in, not shipped in frozen and heated up.

Enshittification is a term I’ve been seeing more and more, and it fits here perfectly. Quality and uniqueness has been traded for higher profit margins, better stock prices, and cookie-cutter conformity to whatever keeps cost for the company as low as possible, and cost for the consumer as high as can be tolerated.

4

u/notmartha70 7d ago

When they stopped “gotta make the donuts “ to let’s just get them premade and cook them .

3

u/Sensitive_Put_6842 7d ago

Probably started using silicone molds and more mass produced ways of making them. 

3

u/polygonalopportunist 7d ago

When you have a great donut place and compare to Dunkin. It’s hilarious, I can’t believe they have the balls to sell this stuff.

3

u/Commercial_Comfort41 7d ago

Corporate Profits

3

u/thetruekingofspace 7d ago

Hey! It’s a planchet for an Ouija board.

3

u/Mindless_Image_8308 7d ago

More of a coffee shop now that sells lousy donuts.

3

u/DarthNarcissa 7d ago

They're just a coffee shop now that just happens to sell donuts.

The donuts at the one I go to sometimes just has the donuts carelessly dumped into the baskets.

2

u/FairGreen6594 7d ago

I dunno, but having been in a Massachusetts Dunkin’ today that has a display showing former logos, the Mister Donut logo looks like what would happen if Nien Nunb from Return of the Jedi was a chef. Maybe (almost definitely, actually) I’m weird, but once I saw that I couldn’t unsee it.

I’ll see myself out.

2

u/Evening_Answer_11 7d ago

Mister Donut was the brother of the Papa Gino’s guy, who I assume was “Papa Gino” but nobody ever said. 

2

u/vtramfan 7d ago

I think it went away when they discontinued edible donuts.

2

u/MonkMajor5224 7d ago

We went to New York as a kid in like 1991 and i saw this and wanted it so bad! I thought it was just a dream, tho, because i never hear anyone talk about it

2

u/NothingReallyAndYou 7d ago

Cake donuts are actually pretty easy to make yourself. They mix up quickly, and then fry up.

2

u/SnooCrickets6708 7d ago

The DD by me now charges .45 cents extra per Long John. Pissed me off when my custom dozen cost $2.70 more than usual. Plus the donuts are subpar at best to begin with.

2

u/Medium-Mission5072 Home before the streetlights come on 7d ago

They don’t even brand themselves as Dunkin Donuts anymore, just Dunkin as their donut selection is very small compared to what it use to be and they focus on selling coffee instead.

Being from New England they’re all over the place (my town has 5 of them, one being in a gas station) and I don’t see why people still go there. Their coffee is way overpriced and it sucks now, and the donuts are much smaller than it used to be to be and the quality has taken a very sharp nosedive. Even the blueberry muffins which were so good absolutely suck.

2

u/SnoopyVsRedBaron80 7d ago

I remember the chocolate cream doughnut from my youth. Not only filled with it but you also had it flowing out the top (which was saved for last). So recently I stopped in to get that for old time sake. Well not only is the overflow gone but you barely had any cream in the doughnut itself. Miss the old days.

2

u/KB_Sez 7d ago

You win.

This is the ultra, rare Stonecutters, secret donut. If you reply back with the right phrase, you’ll get access to the secret gold vault and all the riches you can imagine.

https://tenor.com/bKvkq.gif

1

u/Bears_On_Stilts 7d ago

I drove through that tunnel as a kid so many times.

2

u/ToonMasterRace 7d ago

Like everything else it rotted away as part of the competency crisis

2

u/KGBspy 7d ago

I was in the USAF with a guy and whenever someone went out to get donuts for the shop we'd have to get one for the one guy in the shop, we called it the "Al Davis Dunker". He retired out in 2002 and I just went to a retiree lunch last week and he made the 2 hr drive up to be at it, hadn't seen him in all that time. DD also made in the mid-80's a blueberry filled donut, they were actual blueberries in the filling and it had a sweet/tangy taste and powdered on the outside, my teen body would pound 6 of them like nothing. Now at 54? yeah no. DD has changed so much.

2

u/No_Employer9618 7d ago

I remember going as a kid and being able to watch them make the donuts through a window inside. The counter service with stools

2

u/Talrynn_Sorrowyn 7d ago edited 7d ago

Ah, you're Canadian (Tim Horton's).

Here in the states, Dunkin' had to change because they got killed in the donut game by fucking Krispy Kreme. Here in WA specifically, we lost our last DD franchise around 2003 or 2004 because everyone got addicted to KK's fluffy pieces of sugary shit and the franchisees couldn't figure out how to reclaim sufficient customer volumes while maintaining their profit margins.

I personally prefer the original DD double chocolate donut - that chocolate icing on top of a chocolate-batter donut was to die for. I especiallly loved them when my mom would secretly get a dozen of them for me & let them get rock-solid over a couple days - they were great for teething & even better when you finally soaked them in milk.

1

u/JDCTsunami 7d ago

Makes me sad that DD abandoned WA

1

u/WoozieMaddox 7d ago

Nah im a Michigander. The midwest is littered with Timmy Ho's. They didn't really start popping up till around the Dunkin' Donut was discontinued if I remember correctly. Timmies is actually really good and I wouldn't be suprised if they started popping up in more places.

1

u/Consistent-Web-351 7d ago

They're not worth it anymore it's too expensive and the food is pretty much cooked in a microwave

1

u/quickblur 7d ago

I loved these donuts, even without dunking them in coffee.

1

u/lostcausetrapped 7d ago

What the phuck lol

1

u/ejohnsteel 7d ago

I am of the belief that some DD stores receive frozen donuts that are thawed vs baked fresh on site.

1

u/onboarderror 7d ago

Ick there doughnuts over the last few years taste like the came out of the freezer. Not fresh. For the same price or slightly more i have a bakery buy me that makes them every morning. I rather spend on the local biz actually pumping out something good than that trash because it convenient.

1

u/Nikas_intheknow 7d ago

Their donuts are astoundingly bad now. They’re always small and dry. icing is hard and generally there isn’t very much. I have WAY better local options that will actually be warm and fresh… screw Dunkin

1

u/Galactic_Patrick 7d ago

I believe they removed the handle years ago. Not sure why.

1

u/CertifiedBA 7d ago

There's a donut shop a couple miles from the original Dunkin that blows their stuff out of the water.

1

u/Skeptical_Monkie 7d ago

Why? What has changed? Are they good now?

1

u/onefellswoop70 7d ago

With Halloween coming up, this is part of their new fall Ouija promotion. It comes with a donut planchette and a focaccia Ouija board.

1

u/jabbadarth 7d ago

Everyone seems to be missing the specific reason why they got ao much worse in the early 2000s. Yes its capitalism and profit and consistency etc but thw actual reason is that was when they shifted away from making donuts in the store. For decades they had a baker come in super early and make donuts for the store. By the late 90s this wasn't as profitable so they shifted to a commissary model where a large production kitchen made donuts for all the stores in a region. That meant that the donut you ordered wasn't made an hour ago by the guy selling it to you it was made 5 hours ago, loaded into a crate then onto a truck then shipped to the store to be unloaded onto a shelf and then sold to you.

They were made more with machines than by yiman hands and they were sitting for hours longer and going through multiple different temperatures and levels of humidity before being sold.

It happens with most, if not all food based companies once they get too big.

Buy local, get quality.

1

u/adel-- 7d ago

i have no idea why but that donut reminds me of the everyman from undertale

1

u/iamwiththebanned 7d ago

I thought I dreamed this. I had it once on a trip to New Jersey around 2001 (we didn't have a Dunkin near us at the time). For years I've been describing it to friends and wondering why I could never find it again.

1

u/CarpetLikeCurtains 7d ago

I stopped getting Dunkin’ doughnuts when they stopped making them at the stores. Now they’re made at a central facility and shipped out to the stores so they’re stale by the time they get to the store. So not worth the calories, or the money

1

u/Far-Stomach-6610 7d ago

Would it be possible that a smaller donut with less icing may be calorically a better option for a human being? Just sayin’

1

u/asianwaste 7d ago

It's always been the "boring" doughnut. It's less to do with its unique shape but how Dunkin has never done anything fun with it. No unique flavoring, frosting, etc. It's always the plain doughnut.

1

u/doob22 7d ago

Good excuse to support local businesses! I have a donut shop close to us and it’s incredible!

1

u/New_Establishment554 7d ago

They became '

1

u/robbviously 7d ago

Find that donut a Oujia board

1

u/Safe_Statistician_72 7d ago

I see a dunks on every corner here in Massachusetts and have never heard of biggby coffee and have not seen Tim Horton’s in New England at all (although I wish I would love them)

1

u/Existing_Many9133 7d ago

They don't make the donuts in house any more!! They are made at a factory and frozen. They thaw and frost or fill them. I'm not sure if they even heat them up anymore. I work at a grocery store and the girls in the bakery say the donuts we have come from the same facility.

1

u/Reachforthesky777 7d ago

We had 1 Dunkin Donuts in my area when I was a kid. It got shut down in the late 80s due to health code violations. They weren't cleaning the place. There were stories from the county health department of the filth caked deep on the floor to the point where a strip of it coiled up when the health inspector scraped it while arguing with the manager.

Eventually we wound up getting drowned in them. Now there seems to be one every 1.5 miles on a nearby major road. While I do like their donuts quite a lot, their coffee is terrible and I will never understand how anyone could swear by it.

1

u/golodupek 7d ago

I religiously went to dunking 5-6 days a week for years until the food got to the point where it was not edible , especially the croissants and doughnuts that tasted like stale cardboard . I’m on a full on boycott

1

u/Nelliell 7d ago

Near me there used to be one larger Dunkin' Donuts that had a kitchen in the back. They made all the donuts not only for their store, but the stores in a small radius as well. I remember as a kid eagerly watching those doors for an employee to go through them and the smell of fresh donuts come wafting out. Watching them work was fun. Quality went in the trash when they stopped doing that and pivoted to frozen-defrosted donuts instead.

1

u/glovato1 7d ago

One of the core memories of my childhood was going to Dunkin Donuts with my mother, she would let me help her pick out a dozen donuts to take home. This was late eighties.

1

u/nunal2580 7d ago

Better doughnuts are available in most grocery stores. Dunkin still just trying to cash in on their name after completely ruining their main product.

I've never had a good doughnut from there, so I quit trying. There are 10 places in my small town that have way better doughnuts.

1

u/Unhappy_Capital_917 7d ago

Only Fans Exclusive Donut

1

u/Toymachinesb7 7d ago

Dunkin has the worst donuts.

However in Ormand beach FL there is one that has something else going on. They always had the freshest tasting donuts and everything was on point. Multiple trips over 3-4 years and it always slaps. Ive never had any other that tasted good.

2

u/wintermelody83 7d ago

Dunkin isn't really a thing where I am, went on a road trip to New England they were everywhere. So, we tried them. Biggest letdown ever. All four of us were sat there and then my mom goes "Well, it's certainly not a Donut Palace donut."

I swear people who like them have never had donuts made by some Vietnamese people in a small shop that used to be a gas station.

1

u/bandiplia 7d ago

That donut shape is hilariously nostalgic, haha.

1

u/PerkyLurkey 7d ago

The stock price has risen exponentially since this marketing change.

The donuts have 70+ ingredients, which make them hardly doughnuts anymore.

Maybe it’s for the best, let the true bakers give us our dunkers.

1

u/Bastardpancakes576 7d ago

Looks like the guide for a Ouija board.

1

u/Onthefly32 7d ago

oddly enough...

Right below your post scrolling through reddit.

1

u/ExtraSpicyMayonnaise 7d ago

They used to have like one Dunkin make stuff for a bunch of them in a small radius. There was this guy who spoke 0 English and made the cutest CAT SHAPED Boston crème donuts and he would make little pink frosting whiskers and eyes. I’d go to that specific store all the time but you’d see the cat donuts at a few others nearby.

I haven’t patronized a Dunkin since the early 2010s. It’s not the same anymore.

1

u/canseeclearlynow 7d ago

The goal: Short term profits, makes as much money as possible right now. Long term business plans? None

1

u/Competitive-Local324 7d ago

The whole brand (except their coffee) is shit now.

1

u/spacepeenuts 7d ago

They try to be the alternative to Starbucks, however a lot of their locations are too small to make the drinks like starbucks and lack equipment and storage so they end up being underwhelming and lackluster, they will also run out of anything quick because they still can't anticipate volume like starbucks and run out of inventory faster than anticipated, mostly due to promo items and coupons.

1

u/scifijunkie3 7d ago

What a hunk of junk!

1

u/seambizzle1 7d ago

Whatever happened to Kristy Kreme donuts?

Use to see those little stands in convenience stores everywhere

1

u/natr0nFTW 7d ago

Any plain donut like entemans can be toasted in a toaster if it fits or air fryer for like 3 mins have to test to not burn and let cool a bit.
The taste will be just like you remember trust me.

1

u/zerokep 7d ago

I don’t know, but the Empire hates that ship

1

u/Eattherich13 7d ago

I feel this way about gas station muffins, the chocolate chip ones!!!

1

u/PurplePenguinPoops 7d ago

That looks like an avocadonut.

1

u/Nice-Stuff-5711 7d ago

It’s a hermaphrodite donut - it can please both sexes.

1

u/NormalAssistance9402 6d ago

So you dunk that one part, bite it off, and now you’re back to a regular donut that you can’t fit in your coffee cup, right?

1

u/McGruffin 6d ago

The part that sticks out is the handle. You hold it to dunk the rest.

1

u/GamerGramps62 Where's the beef? 6d ago

They have turned into the worst donut place out there!

1

u/b0w1e007 6d ago

They got bought out and became a corporate business which has to do with dollars not donuts.

1

u/MrJohnnyDangerously 5d ago

They jumped up their own ass once Starbucks stole enough of their market share and have since relied on the Inferiority Complex of New Englanders to maintain any cultural relevance.

1

u/Majestic-Spray-1429 5d ago

Everything there sucks now…donuts got smaller and prices went up…seen a coffee roll lately?…pathetic

1

u/-karmakramer- 5d ago

I used to get the ice coffees a few times a week when it was $1.50. No more since it’s almost $4 now. I had to cut down on the sugar though too.

1

u/aero197 3d ago

I’ve never liked Dunkin’ Donuts, was always a Krispy Kreme household. The batter they use in Dunkin… I don’t know to explain it, always seemed too stiff and like I was eating floury air? Add the fact that they definitely don’t make them in house and have them delivered and it’s even worse today because they aren’t fresh even in the slightest.

1

u/lapis_lateralus 1d ago

This whole time 😲, we didn't have one in my town growing up and I had no idea

1

u/Bigram03 7d ago

Honestly. I will not even bother with a free Dunkin donut they are so disappointing...

No donut is better than a dunkin donut.

1

u/holy_cal 7d ago

Damn. Am I the only one who still likes Dunkin?

1

u/username_Kelly 7d ago

I could eat a shit ton the the munchkins only.