LEEDn Donuts
I’ve objected in the past to the use of the Starbucks/Dunkin Donuts distinction as a class signifier. Starbucks is from the Pacific Northwest and its stores are disproportionately located out west. Dunkin’ Donuts, by contrast, is from New England and manages to do a brisk business in such hoity toity outposts as Cambridge, MA. Well, strike another blow for Dunkin’ elitism as the chain opens its first LEED certified store:
The restaurant features energy-efficient insulated concrete foam walls to reduce air conditioning use by approximately 40 percent, energy-efficient lighting – including motion sensors for restrooms and offices, and water-efficient plumbing fixtures including low-flush toilets and well water rather than potable water for all irrigation.
In addition, the restaurant will have an on-site Earthworm Casting facility, which will house 80 pounds of red earthworms to eat the waste produced by the store. Dunkin’ Donuts will also donate leftover baked goods to America’s Second Harvest, a local food bank.
Supposedly this will serve as an prototype for future green construction by the chain.
31 Responses to “LEEDn Donuts”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
October 21st, 2008 at 9:33 am
If I’m interested in good coffee I don’t go to either of them, but this Cambridge resident gets his caffeinated cream and sugar concoction(WARNING: may contain coffee) from Dunkin’ Donuts every morning. It’s definitely a New England thing. I’ve lived in half a dozen apartments sprinkled about the Boston, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more than a 5 minute walk from at least one Dunkin Donuts… often two.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:36 am
Yeah you won’t meet a bigger asshole than one who refuses to go to Starbucks but goes to Dunkin’ Donuts for the class cred. Give me a break. Now, it is true that the normal crowd at Dunkin’ Donuts is different than that at Starbucks, but there is no way in hell I am going to drink that sweet-ass coffee in order to pretend I am communing with the proletariat.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
I think it’s a little more complicated than region. Boston, the Mecca of the Dunkin’ Donuts universe, has plenty of Starbucks. I think the particular Dunkin’/Starbucks divide that pundits speak of is visible in East Coast cities, where both proliferate and one is considered more downmarket than the other.
Also, while LEED certification for new chain outlets is a great thing, I suspect this is only silver, and that chains will avoid doing the things necessary to get gold or platinum: in particular, designing around pedestrians and mass transit rather than cars.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
It’s a shame that they still have a parking lot in front of the building. Come on, St. Petersburg! Dunkin’ is meeting you halfway — now give them neighborhoods where people can walk to their donut shops!
October 21st, 2008 at 9:53 am
I wanted to comment on this the last time you brought it up, but I simply forgot to come over.
I live in Arkansas. If you can name places where the people would associate “Starbucks” with “latte-sipping liberalism,” Arkansas would more than likely go on the list.
However, I live in Conway, a town of 50,000 (a three-college town, but a small one nonetheless), and there are at least four Starbucks here. In Malvern, a town of around 10,000, there is a Starbucks next to a Wal-Mart, both close to the interstate. The business in both of these can be attributed to certain populations easily: college students and commuters consume a lot of coffee.
Yet students and commuters can’t be all of it. This was proven when I went to the Starbucks in Malvern. As I was going into the store, I saw two men, decked head to toe in camouflage, leaning against a huge quad cab truck with camouflage trim that was pulling a trailer with two huge four-wheelers, sipping coffee in the parking lot.
A message of hope, perhaps: class boundaries can be overcome with an undeniably good cup of coffee.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:58 am
Krispy Kreme, y’all. But you got to get them hot out of the fryer for the real experience.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:13 am
I don’t know about other places, but DC does have an interesting ongoing Krispy Kreme v. Dunkin Donuts battle. More Dunkin’ Donuts from the NE are invading Krispy Kreme terrority (traditionally the south from what I understand). DC is a prime battleground, with residents from their respective regions hailing allegiance to one or the other. Personally, I find both of them gross, but if I really need a donut and have the choice, such as near DuPont Circle, I think I gotta support the invasion, being an invader myself.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:13 am
Echoing #5, Starbucks is potentially more competitive in red-state smallville simply because it’s so hard to find potable coffee to-go anywhere else. McDonald’s has OK coffee, but the stuff in the convenience stores is inexplicably horrible.
A Dunkin Donuts is a bigger operation than a Starbucks, so there are potentially a lot of towns big enough to host a Starbucks, but not a Dunkin Donuts (Enid, OK (pop 50,000) has Starbucks but not Dunkin; also Fargo, ND (5 Starbucks, no Dunkin)).
October 21st, 2008 at 10:39 am
Matt – I think you’re a little behind on your class signifiers. Ever since Rachel Ray wore something that kinda looked like a keffiyeh in an ad, turns out Dunkin Donuts is for elitist liberal latte-sippers too. (Because, y’know, American elites are well known for their support of the Palestinian struggle.)
October 21st, 2008 at 10:44 am
A Dunkin Donuts is a bigger operation than a Starbucks, so there are potentially a lot of towns big enough to host a Starbucks, but not a Dunkin Donuts (Enid, OK (pop 50,000) has Starbucks but not Dunkin; also Fargo, ND (5 Starbucks, no Dunkin)).
Smaller places can house many Dunkin Donuts. My hometown, East Providence, RI, has 45,000 people and eight Dunkin Donuts. Most of them are smaller and have been there for 15+ years, two of them for 30+ years
October 21st, 2008 at 10:54 am
McDonald’s has OK coffee, but the stuff in the convenience stores is inexplicably horrible.
It’s pretty explicable, actually: less turnover means the coffee’s sitting on the warmer for much longer at those places. Plus I’d imagine that coffee-brewing protocol isn’t hammered home as rigorously as at a food-based franchise. The guy brewing the coffee at a Wawa is mostly a sales clerk, and probably views cleaning the pot and brewing a new batch as a distraction from more important duties.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:09 am
80 pounds of earthworms on site at a donut shop? Gah!!!! Nightmares abound.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:13 am
Regarding #8 and #10, Arkansas’ biggest coffee provider, to my knowledge, was Shipley’s, and that was only a scattered few. As for Dunkin, there are no stores in Arkansas that I’m aware of. There aren’t many Krispy Kremes either – only three stores in all of Arkansas.
It seems that there was a market in Arkansas that no one ever paid any attention to until Starbucks, and they are reaping the benefits. Who wouldn’t with a monopoly on coffee?
October 21st, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Dunkin Donuts’ coffee is probably not that much different from the starbucks. But the baked goods are much better. Give me a nice wholesome cinnamon-raisin bagel from DD any day, instead of that fatty, greasy crap from Starbucks.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:29 pm
More Dunkin’ Donuts from the NE are invading Krispy Kreme terrority (traditionally the south from what I understand). DC is a prime battleground…
Well, you know what they say about DC; It’s a city of southern efficiency and northern charm.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Glad to see Dunkin’ doing the LEED thing, but this part confused me: “well water rather than potable water for all irrigation.” What kind of irrigation is a Dunkin’ Donuts doing? Do they mean watering some sort of lawn? In that case, it would be more environmentally conscious to have a landscaping program that did not require watering.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Their marketing department doesn’t seem to agree: cf. their recent TV ads characterizing their customer’s, Clinton-esquely, as ‘hard-working Americans’.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I see: Tupac would go to Starbucks, while Biggie Smalls would go to Dunkin Donuts (twice).
October 21st, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I think the use of well water for landscaping may be an error by the writer. If you’re tapping the ground water for irrigation, then you’re not being helpful to the environment at all. It’s possible that it’s dual plumbing using reclaimed water.
Worm-composting of that magnitude is pretty impressive.
In Los Angeles, we don’t even have Dunkin Donuts. For some reason, they still advertise here though. What a waste of $! Probably the most proletarian thing you can do is buy a large can of Folger’s (yuk!) from Costco, brew it at home, and fill up your thermos before you leave the house.
March 1st, 2009 at 9:00 am
viagra
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
March 11th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
March 14th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
xanax
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:12 am
tramadol
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right