No Time To Make The Donuts

Dunkin Donuts appears to have fallen on hard times, at least from the viewpoint of the store nearest my home.  It seems that Evil Outsourcing has infected even the Donut Shop and there is not a Democratic Politician in sight to bloviate about it.

Now Fred the Baker is long dead, so I understand that the chance of getting a hot donut at any Dunkin are about nil, but there should be some ground rules.  The First Commandment should be Never Run Out, especially if you are open 24 hours, which my local one is.  Over the past month I have been aghast at the number of times I have gone in for my afternoon break at 3PM and have been greeted with empty shelves and having to go three deep in Coffee Flavors before I hit one that is in stock.  If this was a 5am-10pm establishment I would cut them some slack, because they bake once a day, and when it's gone, it's gone, but with a 24 hour establishment... But that's not the worse of it.

There is no Bakery on Site.  It seems that in the Infinite Wisdom of Dunkins, ovens were removed from the establishments and central bakeries were established.  Now all your local shop is is an assembly line that fills the raised and heats pre-made sandwiches.  A delivery is made once a day from this central bakery and if they underestimate sales.  Tough.  Fred is turning over in his grave.  Now if they made a delivery every 4 hours, it might work.  Might.

Now all this may be an unforeseen consequence of franchising.  A person may be able to "own" twenty or so establishments, but he cannot personally manage the affairs of more than one.  If such is the case, maybe it's time to re-evaluate the franchise model and go back to owner-operator.  When the owner is there, he can correct problems when they arise, as they happen.  As the Cliche goes  This is no way to Run a Railroad, or a Coffee Shoppe.

Now I may just be super cynical, but when I hear "America Runs On Dunkins", all I can say is 'This explains a lot."  Maybe I should be more optimistic and just think "I sure hope not."