“I always knew today would be special, but I never dreamed it would be this grand,” said Octavio.

In a tent outside the shop, servers in retro uniforms offered free donuts, peppermint mocha lattes and cheddar bacon flatbread sandwiches to guests. The re-opening ceremony kicked off with a performance by marching bands from two local high schools. Emcees, from popular Boston radio station WROR, welcomed the crowd and introduced the first speaker John Costello, Dunkin’ Brands Chief Global Marketing and Innovation Officer.

Costello congratulated the Carvalho brothers and spoke of the location and brand’s rich heritage and bright future. “Franchisees like Victor and Octavio are our secret weapon. They are the ones who build a bond with Dunkin’ guests and with the community,” he said. “Today captures the best of the old and the new. We couldn’t be more proud of what this store represents.”

Quincy Mayor Tom Koch, State Senator John Keenan and Representative Tackey Chan followed Costello, expressing their congratulations and sincere appreciation for all the Carvalho brothers do to support the community. Each also shared his thoughts on the history and outlook of Dunkin’ Donuts in Quincy. “It seems to me the future is yesterday and it starts right here,” said Chan.

The final speaker, Victor Carvalho, received a rousing ovation as he took the podium. Victor spoke of his family’s involvement with the franchise, which began when his and Octavio’s father, Jose, took over the Southern Artery shop in 1979 from Hy Schwarz, brother-in-law of Dunkin’ Donuts Founder Bill Rosenberg.

“Octavio and I grew to understand what our family had—the history of the brand and this location. We take great pride in being able to say we own and work in the first Dunkin’ Donuts,” he said. “I can’t say enough about our team and our guests. Our guests are unique because they have an emotional connection with Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s a brand they love and want to come back to every day.”

At the close of his remarks, Victor invited his brother to join him to present a $5,000 check to Kathy Quigley and Claire Brennan of the Germantown Neighborhood Center (GNC), one of the local charities the brothers support. Since 1982, the GNC has provided critical services to youth and families in the Germantown community of Quincy.

At the close of the ceremony, guests gathered for the re-dedication of a plaque commemorating the location as the site of the original Dunkin’ Donuts and proceeded to tour the remodeled shop.

Franchise Owners Victor & Octavio Carvalo Beeming with Pride

At ages 12 and 14 respectively, Victor and Octavio began working at the store on day one of their father’s ownership. “We fell in love with it immediately,” Victor said. The brothers officially took over the franchise when their father retired in 1994. Now, Victor’s 20-year-old son works at the store while also attending Salve Regina University.

When the shop came up for its 10-year remodel, the brothers approached Dunkin’ Brands with the idea of doing something special to commemorate the historical nature of the location. Together they planned this one-of-a-kind retro remodel. To achieve the makeover, the store closed for 11 days before unveiling its new look last month.

“We’ve always been proud of this shop, but today surpassed our expectations,” said Victor. “We couldn’t be more proud to have the support of the community, our fellow franchisees and Dunkin’ corporate. We’ve all been on the same page working towards the same goal, and it all came together today in a big way. It’s such a great feeling.”

That’s when it will lose the main patents on K-Cups, the coffee pods that helped make Green Mountain the largest player in the $1 billion-plus U.S. single-serve coffee market.

Once the patents expire, competitors can make their own version of K-cups and threaten the prospects of a company already battling criticism from hedge fund manager David Einhorn that its market-share gains have peaked. Einhorn, president of Greenlight Capital Inc., declined to comment for this story and won’t say if his firm is shorting the stock.

“New entrants into private label could hurt their volume,” said Bea Chiem, a San Francisco-based analyst at Standard & Poor’s, who gives the company a B+ credit rating, four levels below investment grade. When the patents run out, it could also “open up the door for other branded competitors to step in,” she said.

The Waterbury, Vermont-based company fell 39 percent on Nov. 10, the day after reporting fourth-quarter sales that trailed analysts’ estimates, erasing about $4 billion in market value. The shares have since clawed back 26 percent, falling 1.2 percent to $51.69 yesterday. Green Mountain has advanced 57 percent this year, compared with a 3.3 percent slide in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Green Mountain got into the single-serve coffee business in 2002 when it paid $14.4 million for 41 percent of Keurig Inc., a maker of coffee brewing machines. Four years later it bought the rest of Keurig, selling the brewers at a reasonable price and making money on the K-Cups — which only worked with Keurig machines — much the same way Procter & Gamble Co. does with razor blades. Sales have since increased an average of 65 percent a year.

Read more at: BusinessWeek

Starbucks coffee K-Cup Portion Packs for the Keurig Single-Cup Brewing system hit store shelves this week at major food, drug, mass, club, specialty, and department store retailers throughout the U.S.

Starbucks Corp. is the exclusive licensed super-premium coffee brand for the Keurig Brewer, which is produced and sold by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc.

“We are excited to elevate the more than $3 billion dollar single-cup coffee category with the introduction of Starbucks coffee K-Cup Packs,” said Jeff Hansberry, president, Channel Development for Starbucks. “We have seen tremendous success in the premium single-cup category with Starbucks VIA Ready Brew and look forward to expanding our portfolio in this high-growth segment by offering our customers another way to enjoy a perfect cup of coffee at home.”

Read more at: Convenience Store Decisions

The family moved to New England from Portugal in 1966 and opened its first franchise in 1978. The family now owns the first store built in Nashua.

Robert Stebbins spent a lot of time hanging around the intersection of Main and Canal streets before the coffee shop opened in 1961. He still does and orders a medium coffee with four Sweet’N Lows a couple of times a day.

“I remember buying coffee here when it first opened,” Stebbins said. “I think it was 15 cents.”

Stebbins said when he first moved to Nashua, he hung around at a bus stop and newsstand with a pinball machine nearby and watched the trains turn around behind where the Dunkin’ Donuts building now stands.

A lot has changed in the past five decades, but the store still occupies a prime spot for a coffee shop on one of the main thoroughfares to Hudson.

Einstein Bros. unit on campus of University of Nevada–Las Vegas

Dunkin’ Donuts has been very agressive securing college campus locations.

Mark Brandau of the Nation’s Restaurant News reports that Denny’s, Bojangles’, Einstein Bros., Moe’s Southwest Grill share lessons learned from non-traditional growth.

Einstein Bros. unit on campus of University of Nevada–Las Vegas. Restaurant brands are learning to love on-campus locations as growth vehicles and testing grounds for new operations or service techniques.

Nation’s Restaurant News recently spoke with movers in the segment, including Bojangles’ Famous Chicken ’n Biscuits, Denny’s, Einstein Bros., Moe’s Southwest Grill and Beef O Brady’s to share lessons learned.

Bojangles’ Famous Chicken ’n Biscuits opened its first on-campus restaurant Monday at the University of North Carolina–Greensboro. First-week sales surpassed $50,000 for a unit of about 600 square feet, said Eric Newman, executive vice president of Charlotte, N.C.-based Bojangles’. That kind of performance makes higher-education locations “a valuable tool” for accelerating the brand’s already rapid growth, he said.

“[Non-traditional growth] can bolster what you already have and increase market share in penetrated markets, or be a spearhead to introduce more people to the brand,” Newman said. “It’s a great addition to reach people you’re not reaching normally at certain dayparts.”

For instance, he said, Bojangles’ can drive strong sales at lunch from students at the on-campus unit without cannibalizing sales from its three locations in Greensboro near the university.

Read More at: Nation’s Restaurant News

Other Related Articles at DDIFO.org

Campus Dining Just Got Tastier at UNC

Convenience, Cost Drive College Students’ Dining Choices

IHOP Eyes College Campuses

Delayed Dunkin’ Donuts opening set for first week in December at UNH

Martine Powers of the Boston Globe reports that Starbucks was adding about $1.50 to the price of bags of coffee beans weighing less than a pound, never posting the addition to the price.

The Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation discovered the practice in late August and fined five Starbucks locations with $1,575 for overcharge violations two weeks ago.

Last week, Starbucks nixed the $1.50 fee – and not just in Massachusetts. Pressure from the state’s consumer agency spurred the company to eliminate the extra charge nationwide.

“It’s a message to the whole marketplace,’’ Barbara Anthony, undersecretary of the Office of Consumer Affairs, said in a phone interview yesterday. “We have to be able to trust that the price we’re paying is the price we should be paying for a particular commodity.’’

When a customer ordered a bag of coffee beans weighing less than 1 pound, Starbucks tacked on about $1.50 to the price without putting up signs about the fee in the store or itemizing the extra charge on receipts.

For example, beans listed at $11.95 per pound ended up costing $7.45 for a half-pound – not $5.98, or 50 percent of the price.

Read More: The Boston Globe

Customers outside the Dunkin’ Donuts in Newton said they like the idea — as  long as the company promises no change to the coffee inside those cups.

“I always get these plastic cups because the plastic cups are more  recyclable,” said one Newton local. “They want to give me those Styrofoam cups.  It’s no good.”

Read more: 7 News whdh.com

Can there be even more Dunkin’ Donuts in Rhode Island? Apparently, yes.

A group of Dunkin’ Donuts franchise owners have nabbed up 16 former Tim Hortons locations, but just five will be new doughnut and coffee shops. The others will be leased to non-competing companies.

When asked if Rhode Island can really fit more Dunkin’ Donuts in the state, Todd Wallace, field marketing manager for Dunkin’ Donuts in the Providence market, said:

“Though we already have great brand availability in the greater Providence area, the addition of these restaurants enables us to be even more convenient for our Rhode Island and SouthCoast Massachusetts customers, and we look forward to continuing to support the community causes around these shops that are so important to our guests and crew.”

The new locations are: 159 East Main Road, Middletown, where Shawn Thornton of the Boston Bruins will be on Saturday for the official grand opening, and 1023 North Main St., Fall River. Locations to open within about a month are: 231 Main St., Ashaway, and 162 Granite St., Westerly. A spokeswoman said they have not decided where the fifth location will be.

There are 180 Dunkin’ Donuts locations in Rhode Island, and 110 in Bristol County, Mass.

Read more: Providence Business News

The rapid expansion of the world’s leading coffee retailer had recently hit a ceiling when it was discovered that there were no more local corner cafés or small businesses to take over and replace with the global coffee giant. There were simply no more sites left to dedicate to selling disappointingly stodgy muffins or frothing luke warm milk for a 7,000 per cent profit.

Head of Marketing at Starbucks, Brian Monckton, explained: ‘Then we realized that we had acres of prime commercial space inside our own shops, and thought we could exploit that.’ Staff will be encouraged to compete against each other for customers and will be able to launch take-overs if particularly successful.

Monckton also revealed that the laboratories at the Seattle HQ of Starbucks were close to perfecting the ‘Nano-Latte’, a caffeine hit that could be inserted directly into the body at molecular level, thus ensuring greater coffee saturation of the world market. ‘The possibilities are endless,’ Monckton enthused. ‘By 2030 we are planning to have nano-Starbucks outlets surgically implanted in every stomach.’

Expanding its coffee competition with Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks is set to begin selling single-serving K-Cups in November for the Keurig coffee maker.

Starbucks Corp.  .. (Nasdaq: SBUX) said Tuesday that it will be selling single-serving K-Cups for the Keurig coffee machine in grocery stores in November, signaling a challenge to Dunkin’ Brands Inc.  .. (Nasdaq: DNKN), which this month began selling K-Cups in Dunkin’ Donuts franchises only.

Made by Vermont-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc.  .. (Nasdaq: GMCR), Keurig coffee makers are common in workplaces, and are also found in relatively high concentration in homes in Dunkin’s core markets of New York and New England, Dunkin’ Brands said previously.

Starbucks had previously launched its own single-cup system, Starbucks VIA Ready Brew, and said in its news release the first-year sales for the products surpassed $200 million. The Seattle-based coffee giant said it is seeking to build its K-Cup venture into a $1 billion business.

Dunkin’ began selling K-Cups in its franchise stores in early August, supported by ads in television, radio, print, outdoor and digital media, the company said.

Boston Business Journal