One of my clients owns 5 Dunkin Donuts in this area. Two of them are on opposite corners from each other.
Fazoli’s is another one which has a very scattered pattern across the country. I saw several on my multi-state trip last month, from the Carolinas to Ohio, Illinois back to here, but the last one closed here (1 million+ strong county) almost a decade ago.
Well, if it is a one man/or family owned operation, the travel would get onerous after you expand so much.
I don’t think there are any DD’s out here in the Bay area, and someone said there is a Sonic, but I have never seen it. See the TV ads all the time.
There is a Long John Silvers around an hour+ drive from here, but still I see their TV ads also constantly.
I know there was a Chickfila in SoCal, used to eat there. The “nuggets” were superior I admit.
However, at least there are several In-&-Outs within a fairly short drive of home. Having eaten at Sonic, LJS, and Chickfila, IN&Out wins hands down. I though Sonic was sub-standard, IMHO.
FatBurger is a quite good smallish chain, in SoCal and LV only, I think. I’d choose In&Out over Fatburger, but if I had both, I’d go to Fatburger about 1 time in 3.
AFAIK, HSalt Fish & Chips went belly up. Interesting chain.
I think a lot of this Dunkin Donuts talk is badly distorted. I am a transplant to the Boston area and I am quite familiar with the allure here. Two miles from me, you can stand on the roof of a two story buiding and clearly see 4 Dunkin Donuts. Two are stand-alone, one is in a supermarket and another in a gas station. You won’t be more than 1/2 mile from any of them and closer than that for 3 of the 4. This is in a serious suburban area with no busy business centers or pedestrian traffic.
However, Dunkin Donuts is far from a regional franchise and hasn’t been since at least since I was a kid in the 1970’s. I grew up in rural Lousiana and we had Dunkin Donuts just like they did in almost every other region of the country. It is a massive chain and has been for decades. They keep opening up new ones too.
Number of Locations – 5,300 in 34 states, plus another 1,900 in 30 countries
Are the ones in your LA stomping grounds still there?
I want a White Castle to come here, but they have ignored my pleas. So far.
Mmmm, a nice warm bag of sliders.
Are they still pretty big in the midwest?
Peace,
mangeorge
In the Midwest, Dunkin Donuts is all but unknown. I have not seen one since I moved from New Jersey, except for the occasions that I visited the East Coast.
Palm Beach County, FL…a Sonic just opened in Boynton Beach. You can’t swing a cat around by the tail without hitting a Dunkin’ Donuts. I have to drive 30 miles to the nearest Long John Silvers 
Dunkin Donuts used to be a going concern here in Ontario too, but they’ve since been pretty much exterminated by Tim Horton’s and its upstart rival Country Style. There may still be a few around.
Chain restaurant success has a lot to do with the corporation’s skill at controlling expansion. Maximum control can be exerted by having only corporately-owned stores, but then the corporation can only expand as fast as its capital will allow and if things go south, the corporation’s screwed. Franchising will alow for faster, lower-risk growth, but you have to exert enough control over the franchises to guarantee quality and protect the brand without chasing owners away.
So, a lot of it comes dow to whether management WANTS to expand, and if they do, whether they manage the growth correctly.
Yes, they definitely are.
The whole regional transplant thing is weird. I grew up (mainly) in California, but with a lot of family in Virginia and Texas (military family). We moved to the Midwest when I was in high school, and honestly I didn’t know many of these chains still existed. I’ve posted before about how I always thought Krispy Kreme only existed in the 1950s (I have no idea why that brand is so closely aligned with that decade in my head; for all I know it may not even have existed then); I also thought White Castle was some sort of mythical creation. Much to my chagrin (and my husband’s delight), the smelly burgers appear to be a fixture of my life.
All that quote says is that they have to comply with the law before they can franchise with you. Not sure how you infer from this that they don’t want to do that, especially since Chik-Fil-A mentions California, where they PURPOSEFULLY expanded some years ago.
Sonic advertises in Milwaukee as well.
That’s interesting. I was surprised that PA is not on the list. Maybe its just the the franchises I was hoping would come to town seemed to have found gold in other cities.
While Castle used to have shops here, but now jumps from Ohio to NJ. Buffalo Wild Wings is huge in Ohio but has a minimal presence here. Sonic has a couple of locations in the state, but doesn’t seem like its in any hurry to move in. Captain D’s stops at the Maryland border.
They are huge in Indonesia.
Are you kidding? Chicago is lousy with them, although perhaps not to the extent that Boston is. There’s one not three blocks down the street from me.
Of course, 900 of those 5,300 are in Providence alone.
Several Dunkin Donuts near me (western Pennsylvania) are now Donut Connection.
I remember a few years back when I heard from people how great the donuts at Krispy Kreme were. Then, it was announced that a Krispy Kreme was opening near here. I bought some and was kinda nonplussed. I’m not a donut kinda guy, I guess. The Krispy Kreme location closed (replaced by a Chik Fila), although a mini mart chain still has KK donuts.
Sonic does advertise nationally, even though there are massive swaths of the country where they don’t have restaurants. This is part of a strategy, since they have begun moving into northern states, and the name recognition helps business for the new sites.
Business may have floundered, but I think H. Salt is still around, and holy mackerel, I had a whale of a time going in there just for the halibut when I was a kid.
Lotta mercury in their food back then, or so I hear. :dubious:
Actually, my kids (and I) loved the place.