Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee: A Site and Source of Bostonian Identity Even During a Lockdown

by Emily Contois

During Boston’s April 19 lockdown, it was reported that Dunkin’ Donuts stores throughout the area remained open to serve police officers and first responders.[i] The fact that Dunkin’ Donuts remained a beacon of hope during the manhunt, reveals more than a moment of courage and charity for the coffee chain.

The landscape of New England is marked by not only world-famous fall foliage and monuments to America’s history, but also the abundant pink and orange signs of Dunkin’ Donuts, which despite being an international franchise, is a powerful symbol and source of regional pride and identity. Mike Miliard links Dunkin’ Donuts with Bostonian identity as he says: “It’s a lynchpin of our identity. It’s a religion. It’s a cult. People in these parts freaking love Dunkin’ Donuts.”[ii] In fact, in a 2005 market research experiment Dunkin’ Donuts paid dozens of brand loyal customers in cities outside of New England (Phoenix, Chicago, and Charlotte) $100 to switch to Starbucks coffee for one week. They offered $100 to Starbucks customers for the opposite switch.[iii] The results were staggering, with coffee devotees from both camps so firmly committed to their brand that Dunkin’ Donuts researchers identified them as “tribes.” Particularly in Boston and greater New England, this tribal affinity goes beyond taste preference alone.

The role and meaning of Dunkin’ Donuts in New England even eclipses its local origin story. After successfully operating the Industrial Luncheon Service, serving factory workers during World War II from mobile carts, William Rosenberg opened the first Dunkin’ Donuts store ten miles outside Boston in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1950. From the start, Dunkin’ Donuts told a specifically New England story and is a chain antithetical in nearly every way to Starbucks. While Starbucks emulates a European coffee experience, Dunkin’ Donuts proudly promotes itself as American coffee, emphasizing the value of hard work. Furthermore, Starbucks is framed as a product of “posthippie [sic] capitalism”[iv] and often critiqued in an elevated way as a “cultural institution” akin to higher art, located within a “historical trajectory” of long standing tradition.[v] Conversely, Dunkin’ Donuts is a franchised chain built upon the American Dream story of William Rosenberg, a hardworking New Englander with an eighth-grade education, who successfully built a coffee empire.

Throughout decades of expansion, franchising, marketing, and repositioning, Dunkin’ Donuts emerged and remains a regional power brand, operating one store for every 5,000 to 6,000 people across New England.[vi] In addition, Dunkin’ Donuts outnumbers Starbucks ten to one in Massachusetts.[vii] Across the nation, Dunkin’ Donuts retains strong customer loyalty, sweeping the coffee category in the Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index for the past six years.[viii] Despite the “donuts” in its name, the chain does 63 percent of its business in coffee,[ix] which takes on a specific meaning for Dunkin’ Donuts coffee drinkers in Boston.

For in the land of its most immediate origins, Dunkin’ Donuts is a site and source of Bostonian identity, as it embodies the Bostonian character in its no-frills physical environment, the simple words on the menu board, and its straightforward social exchanges. While other chains assume a national identity, forsaking the local, Dunkin’ Donuts continues to be perceived by New Englanders as a local coffee shop, deserving of community patronage and support. In return, Dunkin’ Donuts both endorses and practices values that Bostonians hold dear. Linked in every possible way to New England sports teams—from the Celtics on the court, to the Bruins on the ice, to the Patriots on the field—Dunkin’ Donuts remains committed to favorite local sports teams and to New Englanders, themselves. Furthermore, Dunkin’ Donuts honors not only its roots, but also the hard-working people of New England by maintaining a proud and genuine working class identity. Though Dunkin’ Donuts customers come from all income levels,[x] the brand is strongly and proudly aligned with a working class identity and the values of hard work, productivity, and thrift. Dunkin’ Donuts has been there with a cup of coffee to fuel both work and play and with words of support—“You Kin’ Do It!”

Through its actions during the Boston lockdown and manhunt, Dunkin’ Donuts proved once again to be a daily staple for Bostonians and a powerful symbol of local identity—one that can stay as strong as its people and their city in times of strife.