Dunkin' Donuts: the Starbucks of Brooklyn
“Despite an influx of hipsters and Manhattanites, moderately priced chain stores outnumber the hoity-toity multi-outlets in Brooklyn,” reports the Daily News, basing their assertions on a study released by the Center for an Urban Future earlier this year. We have 1,203 chains in Brooklyn, but many are on the moderate side. There are 89 Dunkin’…
“Despite an influx of hipsters and Manhattanites, moderately priced chain stores outnumber the hoity-toity multi-outlets in Brooklyn,” reports the Daily News, basing their assertions on a study released by the Center for an Urban Future earlier this year. We have 1,203 chains in Brooklyn, but many are on the moderate side. There are 89 Dunkin’ Donuts in Brooklyn, as compared to only 18 Starbucks, and Brooklyn has more 7-Elevens than any other borough. We also score high in Payless, Jimmy Jazz and Golden Krust stores, and low in Sephora, Pottery Barn and Coach.
Brooklyn Sweeter on Dunkin’ Donuts than Starbucks [NY Daily News]
Dunkin’ Donuts at Night. Photo by lab2112.
18 Starbucks in Brooklyn? I remember when there were 3.
Love me a good chain. My friends and I eat at Applebee’s in Sheepshead Bay on occasonal Sundays, and I get some coffee at DD each morning before walking to work. On my lunch hour I walk to 7-11 and if I don’t know what I want for lunch, here’s always something to buy there that’s tasty. Plus they have Citibank ATMs.
I always thought many of these chains serve the same purpose here in Brooklyn as they do in other parts of the country: were here’s few restaurants, or bad ones, they fill a niche. It’s weird to see an Outback Steakhouse in the middle of Bensonhurst’s italian eateries, or to see that all the guards in the Gateway Mall’s several chains have concealed guns. How may places in New York can you go, *knowing* and feeling god that people are armed? Ha ha!
I tend to agree with Montrose on what’s so wonderful about Brooklyn. (Not of course that I wouldn’t be hysterically happy to have some great coffee shops in my neighborhood) but the whole impetus to remake Brooklyn into Manhattan’s image bothers me no end. The Bloomberg administration has made it a priority because they believe better pricing in Brooklyn will keep businesses here in NYC. And that’s admirable and desirable. So Brooklyn is becoming more expensive, thanks, in part, to those policies. I simply don’t want Brooklyn to be Manhattan across the river.
But I love Brooklyn for what it is, not what it isn’t. jwald- there are great stores all over Brooklyn just waiting to be discovered. Guaranteed you’ll find the beautiful place settings and the expresso machine.
I am well aware that there is no “e” in who’s. Sorry.
Who’se defensive, i disagree? I was simply expressing my opinion that I don’t want to see Brooklyn turn into Manhattan Over River. Part of what makes Bklyn Brooklyn is that fact that it isn’t all upscaled and posh.
A newspaper article that does a survey on the number of Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts is rather silly, anyway, as anyone could have easily predicted that there would be less Starbucks and Sephoras in Brooklyn, and due to our demographics, many more Payless shoes and Dunkin Donuts.
My opinions have really nothing to do with Dunkin Donuts at all. I don’t drink coffee, rarely buy a donut, and only go to Starbucks when meeting friends, so the presence or absence of both of these places isn’t the point. I also have no problem with the arrival of a Pottery Barn, and am actually suprised there isn’t one here already, they would probably do well, and depending on where that was, would shop there, if convenient.
My point is merely a wish that we not lose our identiy in our desire to have everything at our fingertips, just like in Manhattan. Part of that identity is our mixture of high and low, expensive and cheap. That’s it, nothing more involved or complicated than that.
The only thing that bugs me about Payless Shoe Source is that there are FOUR of them within a few blocks of each other in the Fulton Mall.
Ugh.
I’m also within a ten minute walk to no less than 5 Starbucks.
Also ugh.
Adrian Lesher;
I completely agree with frsq – that donut shop is not missed. There are other nearby places that have held their own against these particular DD’s – Cafe Regular on 11th Street, for instance (which is great).
Also, please spare us the conspiracy stuff about Carlyle. One of its co-founders and longtime presidents is David Rubinstein, who is active in the Democrat party, and served in the Carter administration:
http://www.carlyle.com/Team/item5553.html
Is he in on the deal also, or do they have body-snatchers at Carlyle?
AdrianLesher – trust me it was nowhere near as vile as the donut shop itself….if there was ever a poster-child for ‘deserves to go out of business’ – that store was it.
i don’t particularly care one way or the other. don’t love starbucks, but definitely don’t love dunkin either. but as long as there are places that serve gorilla and other good coffee, i don’t really care what else is around.
but montrose, why so defensive? i agree with you about serving the lower/middle-income, but i’m not sure what effect dunkin donuts thing has on brooklyn being more “relaxed” than manhattan. it’s not like dunkin donuts – or any of these other chains – is an oasis of chill. in fact, they tend to be a lot dirtier, more hectic, run-down and less pleasant than many independent alternatives. like you say, the result for me is that i just don’t go to them, but it isn’t as if these establishments are some kind of embodiment of why many of us prefer brooklyn to manhattan.
Thank you, Nanook, for pointing out that what interests each of us is subjective and variable. And thank you, tybur6, for your research. I have never been desperate enough to require a store locater for the nearest Starbucks.
Adrian, the great majority of Dunkin Donuts are franchises. And as for Park Slope, I think that was a win-win. (It’s only one store, which wraps around the corner.) The neighborhood got better coffee and good, quick Middle Eastern food where the independent doughnut shop used to be.)