Choosing our religion

This was really funny and sooooo true. I don't drink coffee myself and according to one online quiz it made me less of a Bostonian/Massachusetts (ite?). Because I missed the coffee questions, I only scored 84%. 84% for a total native!

Intersting story and pretty true. I'm from a middle class Boston family and I can't recall a time when we weren't tagging along with my mom or dad to hit a dunkies. Shit, 2 of my brothers worked at a store for awhile. I am the black sheep of the family however. I can barely gag down a dunkie regulah - all cream and sugar, blech. Do you even taste any coffee? And those dunkie girls and boys love pouring in milk and cream. Just try to get a dark, you practically have to yell at them and then 1/2 the time they still put in too much. Yes, I am a Starbuck's man now, but the rest of my Irish clan swear by Dunkie's and still question my sexuality because I order a vente americano when I get my coffee.

I remember a fairly recent photo with Bush Junior at Dunkin. You know, the common guy sort of crap. Come to find out Daddy Senior Bush had just bought into the company!

I remember heading to the D&D on Hancock Street near Neponset after the paper route on Sundays back in the early seventies. That must have been one of the first ones. A couple dozen doughnuts provided breakfast for the whole family and whoever happened to straggle in. The Dunkin’ Doughnuts franchise has never been about health and fitness. As an adult I rarely drink it, though on a job a few years back, D&D trips were a big bonding activity, so I started enjoying a medium ‘regulahh’ and a bagel or doughnut each morning with the group. Needless to say, within 3 months I put on 15 lbs. The big difference I would guess between D&D and other franchises is the number of bolts required to hold up the chairs.

I have to admit, this article irked me. I don't ascribe to the way the media in Boston loves to bash Starbucks and how evil it is. Is Dunkin' Donuts really for the working person? What kind of benifits do employees at the precious Dunkies get? Anything? Nothing at all. Starbucks, on the other hand, cares about their employees: everybody who works at least 20 hours a week is eligible for benefits. I've worked at Starbucks for almost 3 years, and I have no complaints. I feel respected as an employee, unlike the other customer service jobs I've had. And what about the customer service at Dunkin' Donuts? Most of the time when I go in there, they screw up my order. I have to taste it before I leave to make sure it's right. Is it that difficult to get a hazelnut coffee very light with no sugar correct? I understand that Dunkin Donuts is a New England institution, but it's not as glorified and wonderful as this article portrays it to be. And customers at Starbucks aren't all zombies staring into their computers: a lot of them do have real lives.

Dunkin' Donuts is still strange to me. I was born and raised in Los Angles. Long Beach was spotlighted as having the second most doughnut shops per capita in Men's Heath Mag behind Fort Worth, so I don't have a emotional connection to doughnuts. I wonder what the equivalent would be. I guess Macdonald's would be the closest thing we have to a famous export with brand loyalty. Macdonald's has that working man's feel. Bill Clinton famously loves their fries. Now living in Philadelphia, I have to admit that the coffee at DD isn't that great. The coffee at Wendy's is better. You can't really compare Starbucks and DD. I remember my first visit to Dunkin' Donuts. She asked if I took it with cream and sugar. I said yes expecting her to leave room for the two. She should have asked if I wanted coffee with my cream and sugar.

Sadly I moved from New England (big mistake) to Nevada, Las Vegas to be precise alas they have no Dunkin Donuts here. Instead they have Starbucks the most disgusting brew I have ever had. I WANT MY DUNKIN DONUTS BACK. I have a list of things I wish to do once I'm back on the home sod: 1: Kowloons 2: Jevelis 3: Dunkin Donuts Its true they have the BEST coffee I have ever tasted from Europe to America West nothing compares...

Screw'em both. I wish there were more Honey Dews around.

According to Joe Biden you have to have an Indian accent to work in a Dunkin Donuts.

Twenty five years ago, the only place you could get a bad cup of Dunkin coffee was in Lowell (because of the water). Unfortunately, thats no longer the case. As a life long client of DD (We would stop at the original location every Sunday after playing football as teenagers to get doughnuts while walking home), I have to say they have some issues. 1) The coffee is not as good as it used to be. Period. 2) The coffee is inconsistent from location to location. 3) Too many of the clerks do not understand enough english to serve the menu and/or have a hard time with basic math skills. 4) The doughnuts are no longer fresh. How could they be given that they are not made onsite. 5) DD's last couple of owners have changed focus from the coffee to sugary junk filled childrens drinks. 6) At most locations, they refuse to put cream cheese on a bagel when you ask them to. (not very convenient to try to spread the cream cheese while driving) I have had DD as far away as Chiang Mai Thailand. I want DD to be good (again). I want to support the company instead of the over roasted competitor. Please don't make it so hard to continue doing so.

Great job on the article I now have my 15 minutes of fame. Gus

I'm not from New England, but I've lived here since 1985. Dunkin' Dounts was one of the first things "New England" that I was introduced to as a student (that, and Steve's Ice Cream). I've been drinking Dunks ever since. It really is mellow, but rich coffee, and the buzz is warm, not harsh or jittery. The other appeal to me is apparent: New Englanders like to just 'get on with their business'. They just humbly (for the most part) push through their daily routines with a work ethic that probably rivals anyplace in the U.S., and the steaming hot coffee, with the heaping 'regular' spoonfuls of sugar to jolt them awake, is just the thing to keep them going. No time to sit on a stuffed leather chair, next to the cozy fireplace, listening to the Muzak of John Mayer or Dave Matthews, and reading Emily Bronte! No siree, we've got to keep moving, make our hard-earned dollah. Here's to having more Dunks every three blocks! As with most articles, this one was about 2 or 3 pages too long. Most of what needed to be said was in the first 2 pages. But it was enjoyable enough.

They must really put something in Dunkin Donuts coffee for how else could you explain why I who come from and live in Blue Mountain coffee country sometimes fantasise about operating a Dunkin Donut franchise in Jamaica. Used to live in Boston and have relocated some 12 years and still miss a-on-th-e way to work stop for a coffee and a cranberry orange muffin. By the way, was in Boston in January and no cranberry orange muffins was available in none of two stops at Dunkin Donuts. Whaa gwan?( that's Jamaican for what's happening?) Long live Dunkin Donuts and Boston Phoenix; hadn't stopped in at Boston Phoenix for about eight years and so very nice to see you still around. One Love Former Bostonian WH

Dunkin Donuts burns its coffee by brewing it at too high of a temperature in order to brew it quickly. It ruins the taste of the coffee leaving it bitter.

All I know is that when I go into any Dunkin Donuts, (except the one in Penn Station, they won't add sugar for some reason), I can say Large Regular and I get the same amount of cream and sugar and good tasting coffee. And that's what matters to me. I work in a building with a Cafe La France and their coffee leaves a bitter after taste in my mouth. So I have a coffee maker in my office and I buy Dunkin Donuts ground regular coffee by the pound. I have it home as well. And every cup of coffee is as good as the one before. To me, the mark of a really good cup of coffee is how it taste and DD's coffee tastes good. I was raised in the DC area and I the one thing I hate about going home is the lack of DD's. There's one several miles from my sister's house and it takes a bit of finageling to get her to swing by there some time during my trip. I take the train to San Francisco once a year and I bring a coffee maker and my DD ground coffee with me to make coffee in my sleeper. It's worth it.

I just saw this article today via a link from an online article on Yahoo! It was great but omitted one important element in the expansion of Dunkin' Donuts' influence -- Boston author Robert B. Parker. Until I read the article, I thought his detective Spenser's obsession with Dunkin' Donuts was just a literary device to round out the character. Now I know the truth: it's the only way to make him a believable local. Boston PI + time on his hands + regular interactions with cops = Dunkin' Donuts. End of story.

Im a Boston native now living in DC. Dunkin Donuts may be successfully expanding south, but they aren't teaching these southerners how to make a real coffee! When I come back to Boston for holidays, my first stop isn't mom's house, it's Dunkin Donuts. Can you please send someone down here to teach these people how to make a decent iced coffee?? Please?!?!?

For those of you who are sworn against the Dunkin Donuts, I believe you may have had bad experiences but to judge every store is ludicrous. I have been working at Dunkins' since 2005. I have worked for two different locations, one in Mass and one in NH. For those who say that crew members don't understand English, I believe that's a huge generalization. I'm American. I know english. I don't believe that the hiring requirements are "must speak a different language." However, it is true that some have lots of foreigners. This is mostly in part due to the owners. Both of the owners I have worked for are Portugese. They hire family members, friends, etc when the place is first opened. This is because of the convenience. It also happens that the majority of their friends are of the same ethnicity. However, these people for the most part understand and can speak perfect English. As for the coffee messups, I believe that there is a little ignorance on your part. New people are hired alot, so that accounts for some mistakes. As for others, sometimes the machines do not work correctly so we do not notice that you didn't get your full flavor of hazelnut or that the cream is letting out too much or too little. Sometimes, the headsets don't work properly work when it rains out so we hear incorrectly. We repeat it back ,and big surprise- the majority just says 'yes' so they can drive up or finish their conversation on their cell phone. Then they see their coffee and complain. We're too busy juggling every single customer who comes in all at once. And with the brewers burning the coffee? Very few stores do this. Each store should be testing and maintaining the heat of the burners-however some don't. But alot do. Credit should be given to those. Customer Service depends on where you go, although I'll say that Londonderry Donuts Donuts on Mohawk has the best service I've ever seen ANYWHERE. As for Starbucks? Where I live, the closest Starbucks is in Boston. Which is a good 45 minutes away. Now people may complain about the price of DD(supply and demand) but Starbucks is through the roof. And when you order all your special drinks at Starbucks, it has come to my attention that alot of it already has the ingredients in it and it isn't much work. Starbucks has better working conditions probably because they rake in so much damn money. DD is for high school students typically, and it would be nice to have more benefits-but hey dare to dream. sorry, just had to get that out. :)

The author missed a major point. DD coffee tastes WAY BETTER than Starbucks. I don't subscribe to all this marketing and class crap, I like DD cause it has GOOD COFFEE. Same reason I go to Tim Horton's in Canada.

I lived in Connecticut until I was 14-years-old & then was forced to move to Florida. I live in Jacksonville and there is not a Dunkin Donuts around every corner like I was used to in CT. When I go to school there is a DD a little closer but it's not the same. I can't wait until I graduate and can move back up north to get my daily fix of DD. It is truly a cultural thing & I love my DD as much as I love my Yankees.