Dunkin' Donuts

Did You Know?

• Bill Rosenberg originally opened a restaurant called the Open Kettle in 1948 before renaming it Dunkin' Donuts in late May 1950.
• In May 2026, Dunkin' signed a franchise agreement to return to Canada, eight years after ceasing operations there.

History

Bill Rosenberg started selling doughnuts and coffee out of a place called the Open Kettle in Quincy, Massachusetts, back in 1948. He got the idea from working in factories and at construction sites, where those two items were the biggest sellers. After talking with company executives, he changed the name to Dunkin' Donuts in late May 1950. The first logo came out in 1953, and a mascot named Dunkie appeared the next year.

Rosenberg began selling franchises in 1955. Around that time, Johnny Spartos, who managed the original Quincy shop, talked Rosenberg into making a doughnut with a handle so people could dunk it in coffee. In 1963, Rosenberg's son Bob took over as CEO at age 25, and the chain opened its hundredth location that same year. At that point, Dunkin' Donuts was part of Universal Food Systems, a group of ten small food-service businesses, and individual shops had wildly different menus—some served full breakfasts, others just doughnuts and coffee.

Over time, the other Universal Food Systems businesses were sold or shut down, and the company was renamed Dunkin' Donuts. The menu and store layout were standardized, and new items were added. In the early 1980s, the chain switched from counter service and ceramic cups to self-service counters and paper cups. Dunkin' Donuts went public in 1968 and was bought by Allied Lyons, which also owned Baskin-Robbins, in 1990.

During the 1990s, it expanded by buying rivals Mister Donut and Dawn Donuts. The handle-shaped Dunkin' Donut was dropped in 2003, except in Singapore, because it was hand-cut and too expensive compared to machine-made ones. The company moved its headquarters to Canton, Massachusetts in 2004. In December 2005, Dunkin' Brands was sold to a private equity group for $2.4 billion. By 2010, global sales hit $6 billion. A new store design was introduced in June 2013.

Marketing

Dunkin' Donuts launched the "It's Worth the Trip" campaign featuring a groggy character named Fred the Baker, whose signature line was "Time to make the donuts." The Television Bureau of Advertising named it one of the five best TV ads of the 1980s. Actor Michael Vale played Fred for sixteen years, retiring the role in 1997. Founder William Rosenberg later used the catchphrase as the title of his autobiography.

In March 2006, the company swapped slogans to "America Runs on Dunkin'." That year, ads used songs by They Might Be Giants to promote new summer items. Another 2006 series introduced "Fritalian," a made-up language created by agency Hill Holliday to mock upscale coffee chains like Starbucks, where customers struggled with fancy drink names. The ads ended with the line, "Delicious lattes from Dunkin' Donuts.

You order them in English." A 2007 commercial took a sharper jab, showing a customer ordering a "large" and being scolded to say "dieci." Rachael Ray began appearing in Dunkin' ads in 2007. In May 2008, the company pulled an online spot featuring Ray in a black-and-white fringed scarf after commentator Michelle Malkin and others claimed it resembled a keffiyeh and signaled support for terrorism. The removal drew criticism that Dunkin' had bowed to special interests.

Locations

Dunkin' Donuts is now run from an office in Canton, Massachusetts. Before that, its main base was in Quincy, Massachusetts, where a building went up in 1950. In early 2013, the company's CEO said that franchise opportunities would open up in California for the first time in 2015, though this actually marked a comeback—the chain had run stores there until 2002. Later that year, Dunkin' signed deals with four franchise groups to build 45 new restaurants across Southern California, with the first stand-alone spots expected in Orange and Los Angeles counties by 2015.

Texas was also on the expansion list for that year. In March 2014, a combined Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins store opened in Ramona, the third California location after ones in Barstow and on Camp Pendleton. More California shops followed, including in the Los Angeles area and, by 2016 and 2017, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Minnesota saw Dunkin' return in 2014 after nearly ten years away, with a shop inside the Kahler Grand Hotel in Rochester.

Across the U.S., Dunkin' sometimes shares a building with Baskin-Robbins. As of early 2017, every Dunkin' location is owned and run by a franchisee. You can find these shops inside gas stations, supermarkets, mall and airport food courts, and Walmart stores. In July 2013, the chain opened its 500th New York City restaurant, which also houses a Baskin-Robbins.

Criticisms and controversies

A customer fed up with the company launched Dunkindonuts.org in 1997 as a place for angry customers and employees to air their grievances. The site ranked higher than the official Dunkin' Donuts website in search results and got national press before the company bought it in 1999. One franchisee accused the chain of pressuring single-store owners into selling out at a loss over small rule violations. Between 2006 and April 2008, Dunkin' Donuts took its own franchisees to court 154 times.

Over the same stretch, McDonald's faced five lawsuits, and Subway—which has four times as many locations—sued its franchisees just 12 times. These numbers don't include arbitration cases. Franchisees claim the company prefers owners who run multiple stores. In May 2010, Dunkin' Donuts promoted a "Free Iced Coffee Day" on its national Facebook page, but the giveaway only happened in 13 cities, sparking a wave of angry comments from customers who felt misled.

The company issued its first formal Animal Welfare Policy in 2012, pledging to phase out gestation crates in its U.S. pork supply by 2022. It promised progress reports in 2018 and 2020, but none were released, and by 2025 the company no longer publicly commits to eliminating those crates. In 2013, a Dunkin' Donuts outlet in Thailand ran an ad showing a woman in black facepaint to promote chocolate doughnuts. Human Rights Watch called it "bizarre and racist," and the U.S. headquarters apologized.

In January 2014, Nancy Lewis of Canaan, Connecticut, started a petition urging the chain to donate unsold food to local shelters and food banks after watching her local shop toss out large amounts. She pointed out that the company has no official policy for donating leftovers, and employees aren't allowed to take food home.