You can’t have a true conversation about all things Northern or Southern without a conversation about donuts: I remember very well my first conversation down here on this topic.
"What’s a Krispy Kreme?" I asked when approached by someone at work carrying a box of donuts with that label. “They are the best donuts in America” he said. Oh well, I fired back, you have not had a Dunkin Donuts-Donut,then I see ” This conversation went on for much longer than what it really should have. It was the North versus the South all over again......
.... Gettysburg and Antietam, Lee vs. Grant. I was trying to be nice about it, but you can understand growing up in Boston, we only had Dunkin Donuts and only the best in the world! …right? And the dunkin donuts coffee?????? great stuff!! and what say you about the Krispy Kreme coffee..humm ?
I remember asking out loud, why is this donut hot? “That’s how we like them” I heard in the background. Well, I did try one from the box that day; it was the “glazed” donut. Hot (Yuk) and VERY glazed, with puddles of sugar hanging off the sides.
You have to eat a Krispy Kreme glazed donut like you would eat spare ribs that are smothered in barbecue sauce, with plenty of napkins. The "glaze" stays on your hands the whole day and can clog up your keyboard among other things. You need to act fast to get the hot sugar off of your hands and face as it takes no time to harden like cement. I promised myself I would never eat one again.
Thus began my long, long abstinence from local donuts. Yea, most of it was about the taste, but I would be lying to you if northern pride was not also playing a part of my donut abstinence.
I am a Dunkin Donuts man:
A dunkin donuts honey dipped donut and a cup of coffee is heaven. For me, the nearest dunkin donuts is in another state. They did have a franchise 45 minutes away in Tallahassee but it closed down - go figure? So like all other things in life that you purposely stay away from, when the time is right and there is a dunkin donut in sight, I may have this reaction:
Dunkin Donuts started in 1946 when William Rosenberg (founder of Dunkin Donuts and also the International Franchise Association) invested $5,000 to form Industrial Luncheon Services,
a company that delivered meals and coffee break snacks to customers in the outskirts of Boston, Massachusetts. The success of Industrial Luncheon Services led Rosenberg to open his first coffee and donut shop, the "Open Kettle". Then, in 1950, Rosenberg opened the first store known as Dunkin' Donuts in Quincy, Massachusetts.
The first Dunkin’ Donuts shop was opened in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1950. The company began franchising five years later. By 1963, there were over 100 Dunkin Donuts shops open and by 1979 over 1000 locations open.
Krispy Kreme also has a strong history:
The founder, Vernon Rudolph, worked for his uncle, Ishmael Armstrong, who purchased a secret recipe for yeast-raised doughnuts and a shop on Broad Street in Paducah, Kentucky, from Joseph LeBeouf of Lake Charles, Louisiana. Rudolph began selling the yeast doughnuts in Paducah and delivered them on his bicycle.
The operation was moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and other family members joined to meet the customer demand. The first store in the nation with the Krispy-Kreme name opened on Charlotte Pike in 1933. Rudolph sold his interest in the Nashville store and in 1938 opened a doughnut shop in Winston-Salem, and began selling to groceries and then directly to individual customers. The first store in North Carolina was located in a rented building on South Main Street in Winston-Salem in what is now called historic Old Salem. The Krispy Kreme logo was designed by Benny Dinkins, a local architect.
So what say you? Krispy Kreme or Dunkin (the best) Donuts??
