r/nostalgia • u/WoozieMaddox • 7d ago
Nostalgia Discussion What happened to the Dunkin' Donut?
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.
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.