Dunkin' Donuts has opened in Barstow.
If you're a native Californian or a transplant from pretty much anywhere west of the Mississippi, this news will be met with a shrug. If you're from the northeast–especially from Boston or New York–you're probably trembling with glee.
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Dunkin' Donuts is kind of the In-N-Out of the Northeast, a huge local brand that inspires nostalgia and loyalty from those who grew up with it, while being derided as “just sort of okay and I don't get the hype” by those who didn't.
Dunkin' Donuts has plans to invade the already-saturated California doughnut market in a big way, with hundreds of stores. The first branch opened in 2012 in the Marine Corps Exchange on Camp Pendleton and was so overrun by people with funny accents trying to access those chocolate glazed doughnuts that the Marine Corps had lines at the gate and had to turn people away so they could conduct their business.
It remains to be seen whether Dunkin' Donuts will be able to gain a strong foothold in an area full of hundreds of independently owned doughnut shops that procure their dough from the Cambodian Doughhnut Cartel. Places like Sidecar and Donut Man are probably safe from the Double D Depredations, as are places like Jax Doughnuts in Anaheim, which functions as a community meeting place. Krispy Kreme, beloved in the American South, was mobbed when it first arrived in Southern California, but shut down most of its expanded stores in the face of the recession and the rise of low-carb diets.
The Barstow location is located at 1611 E. Main St. and is well placed for trips to Vegas or wherever it is people go when they take I-40. The first branches in Orange County will be opening in early 2015.
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