Dunkin’ drops Donuts from its name; unveils new store ideas
New renovations designed for the ‘individual on the go’
The future is now for Dunkin’ Donuts, the iconic 68-year-old food and beverage purveyor, or at least at two Connecticut locations.
The Canton, Mass. based company debuted its stores of the future at 1101 N. Colony Road in Wallingford and at one of its locations in Simsbury. The new stores are part of a massive overhaul of the brand that includes shortening the store’s name to Dunkin’.
More than 50 Dunkin’ locations chain-wide will undergo the renovations that closed the North Colony Road location for three weeks while the changes were made. Neither a spokesman working for the company nor Manny Rocha, the local franchisee that owns the store, where willing to comment on how much the renovations to the store cost.
“It’s designed for the individual on the go,” Erica Rocha, one of Manny Rocha’s daughters, said of the changes to the North Colony location. She and her sister, Erin, work with their father overseeing the family’s 13-store empire, as well as the centralized bakery in Cheshire that produces doughnuts for all of the locations.
Manny Rocha said one of the goals of the new store design is to boost to-go orders made through Dunkin’s smartphone application. With a few taps on the app, customers can place their order and pay for it, as well as notifying Dunkin’ employees when they are arriving at the location to pick up their food.
The North Colony location has added a second drive-thru lane, one for consumers placing their order the old-fashioned way and the other for those picking up orders already placed and paid for via the app. The mobile-order customers go to the head of the line, which cuts down on customer wait times, Erica Rocha said.
The other changes put in place for the store-ofthe-future concept are more subtle.
Baked goods no longer are located behind Dunkin’ staffers. Instead, they are displayed in clear glass display cases similar to the kind bakeries use.
“It shows how extremely focused we are on quality,” Manny Rocha said.
The other highly visible change is how the store’s cold drinks are dispensed. A row of taps, similar to those that dispense beer at bars, are right at the front counter.
“It’s a cool and different way to display the drinks that we have,” Erica Rocha said. “It’s very eyecatching.”
At some point in the future, the North Colony location will add selfservice ordering kiosks, Erica Rocha said.
“It’s all about making sure we get the order right every time,” she said.