Saluting Dunkin’ Donuts at 60 years
Christopher Borrelli, a columnist for The Chicago Tribune salutes Dunkin’ Donuts at 60 years:
An illustration of a Dunkin' Donuts sign on Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" painting. (Courtesy of The Art Institue of Chicago)
The other night I sat in a Dunkin’ Donuts and watched the world push through and buy dollhouse-shaped boxes of Munchkins and mortar-shell-size coffees. I watched old men rest on padded stools at the counter and a father come in with his kids and buy a dozen green-sprinkled doughnuts for St. Patrick’s Day. I took notes and I ate an unadorned Old Fashioned Cake Donut and sipped an iced coffee (which seems to come in Sugary, Too Sugary and Delectably Diabetic) and I considered why a doughnut shop that refuses to spell “doughnut” correctly has hung on for decades. Dunkin’ Donuts just turned 60. But you probably didn’t know because you probably take Dunkin’ Donuts for granted.
As did I, once.
Until a couple of years ago, when I headed back to my hometown of Providence, R.I., and ran across this wonderful headline in the Providence Journal: “Midget racing at the Dunk this weekend.”
Allow me to translate. Midget racing is a “sport” that involves small cars moving at high speeds along short tracks. It rarely involves physically diminutive people. The Dunk is the nickname of the Dunkin’ Donuts Center, and so entrenched is Dunkin’ Donuts in New England — and particularly my hometown, which claims both the most Catholics and most Dunkin’ Donuts per capita of any city in the U.S. — that Dunkin’ won naming rights to the Providence Civic Center, where I saw Rush twice and Springsteen three times and the Clash once. The arena is outfitted with Dunkin’s signature post- World War II-pre-Reagan-era pinks and oranges, its bulbous arena architecture a pleasant match with the plump lettering and obscenely sunny Carter-era Dunkin’ Donuts logo design.
It made me nostalgic, because Dunkin’ Donuts has become the ’70s AM radio of the fast-food world: cheap and forgiving.
Growing up, I had thought of Dunkin’ Donuts as gaudy and garish when I thought of it at all, a constant that always was and always would be — the plastic sheen of its atmosphere not so much warm as it was a ubiquitous reminder of the frosting on its pastries, which came in colors that did not occur in nature. Growing up (and maybe a bit still), I thought of Dunkin’ Donuts as New England’s bathroom — because there was always a Dunkin’ within blocks of where I was, no matter where I was, an easy, guilt-free, sorta public restroom always around the corner. In the winter, it was a place to wait out a snow squall, and in summer, when leaving the beach, it was a place to clean the sand from your toes and change out of swim trunks.
Read More at: The Chicago Tribune
What’s for Lunch? Cartoon from Independent Joe Issue #3
This cartoon was sketched by Susan Petersen and it appeared in the Independent Joe Issue #3 Magazine.
To see the whole magaizne online click here: Independent Joe Issue #3
What's for Lunch? Cartoon from Independent Joe Issue #3
Who’s Driving the Bus Cartoon from Independent Joe Issue #2
This cartoon was sketched by Susan Petersen and it appeared in the Independent Joe Issue #2 Magazine.
Cartoon from Independent Joe Issue #2
Jonathan Rhys Meyers & Reena Hammer Run On Dunkin’
Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Reena Hammer run on Dunkins
Jonathan Rhys Meyers and his girlfriend, Reena Hammer, head back to their NYC hotel together with a pick-me-up from Dunkin Donuts on Tuesday (February 2).
The 32-year-old Irish actor flashed a peace sign at photographers before heading inside.
Read more: Just Jared
Dunkin’ Schmunkin – I bet you people could create a better donut than those jokers
Chris Borrelli writes at the Chicago Tribune: Well, could ya?
Could you create the finest donut known to mankind – a monument to the art of the fried cake itself? Last year around this time, Dunkin Donuts posed this very question via a contest. If you could come up with an incredibly original donut, they would give you credit and let you name it and then they would sell it and give you some money for it. This year, not so incredibly, they have launched the 2nd Annual Create Dunkin’s Next Donut Contest. Entries will be accepted starting Feb. 8 and the winner will receive $12,000 and… whoa, whoa, whoa.
The trouble is, when you go to the Web site that Dunkin has created for this contest, the ingredients are limited to those that any Dunkin Donut shop could reasonably sell on a normal day. You are given a number of choices – warning, this process is so addicting, you will not get any work done for the next hour – and many options (glaze, stuffing, shape, etc.), but the options subject to what can be accomplished in an average donut shop, including the more than 475 Dunkin Donut shops that are in the Chicago area.
So, no bacon cruller or wood-roasted sunflower seed long john topped Vermont maple glaze.
I came up with a pumpkin cake ring coated in a French cruller glaze and topped with a Graham Cracker crust. I called it “Man’s Inhumanity to Man,” but it was woefully lacking. I felt constrained by THE MAN.
Last year’s winner was a guy named Jeff from Alabama who came up with a toffee-sour-cream cake.
You can do better Chicago. You gonna let Alabama tell you they know better when it comes to fried food? Go to the Dunkin web site and submit your masterpiece and let us know here what you came up with.
Better yet, give us a donut that those corporate donut guys wouldn’t dare trot out. An okra and kimchi stuffed round boy coated in a glaze of BBQ and sprinkled with fried M&M’s? Well, yes we can, Chicago.
Massachusetts Invaded by Republican Zombies – Humor
With Scott Brown winning the Massachusetts Senate Seat that has had a democrat represent the state for over 35 years is an indication that Republicans have indeed invaded Masschusetts.
Democrats are worried!
Drive-Thru Baby Shower
No doubt you’ve used a drive thru-window to get a quick cup of coffee or a snack. But, a group of people came together in a random act of kindness to give — instead of get — through a drive-thru window.
A Dunkin’ Donuts employee gets a drive thru baby shower.
Watch the video below or at: WJHG Channel 7 Panama City, Florida
Comedian Bob Marley – Dunkin-Hunkin-Munkin Audio Clip
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No Shoes, No Service, Baby: Burger King Admits Error
Like most restaurants, the Burger King in this St. Louis suburb has a no shoes, no shirt, no service policy.
And baby, do they enforce it.
Too much so, the company admitted, after apologizing for restaurant workers who asked a mother to leave because her 6-month-old wasn’t wearing shoes.
Jennifer Frederich, her mother and Frederich’s infant daughter, Kaylin, stopped at the Burger King in Sunset Hills on Sunday. The baby was shoeless — Frederich figured tiny baby feet were immune from the rule.
But workers told the family to leave because the shoeless baby was violating a health code. In fact, shoelessness is not a health code violation in St. Louis County.
Frederich told KTVI-TV that she and her mother ate hurriedly and left before they could be kicked out. Frederich did not have a listed phone number, and The Associated Press could not reach her for comment.
Burger King released a statement Thursday indicating workers had taken the no shoes, no service policy too far.
“Our franchisee, which independently owns and operates this restaurant, apologizes for this guest’s experience,” the statement read. “The franchisee is retraining his restaurant team on the proper use of the ‘no shoes’ policy.”
The franchise owner also contacted Frederich to apologize in person.
Frederich told the TV station the flap was a bit overblown, and she hoped no one would be fired. But she appreciated Burger King’s apology.
Burger King, based in Miami, is the nation’s second-largest hamburger chain, with 11,800 restaurants worldwide.
Robert Pattinson Sipping a Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee
Robert Pattinson Sips Dunkin' Donuts Coffee While on the Film Set. Photo by Just Jared
Robert Pattinson and on-screen love interest Emilie De Ravin shoot new scenes for their new movie, Remember Me, at the Crestwood stop of the Metro North Railroad Harlem Line in Yonkers, New York on Monday afternoon (June 29).
Remember Me centers on two lovers whose new found relationship is threatened as they try to cope with their respective family tragedies.
The 23-year-old British actor, plays Edward Cullen in the Twilight franchise.
