
Dunkin Donuts Just Ruined Your Childhood

Baskin-Robbins in Cameron Village, an institution to generations of Raleigh residents for over 50 years, is closed. I was sent the picture below on Wednesday afternoon.

RIP Baskin-Robbins in Cameron Village. 😢 📷: Scoops D-B pic.twitter.com/2yBeyU5Qde — William Needham Finley IV (@WNFIV) May 16, 2018

I was already exhausted from covering Webb’s victory, debuting ITBlake the intern’s house flipping video, editing the Development Beat, and breaking the news about Apple moving to NC (more on that later).

Tim Cook is giving the commencement at Duke tomorrow. He’ll announce Apple’s plans to bring their East coast headquarters to RTP. If I’m wrong it’s because the deal fell through over that Duke guy getting mad about rap music being played in a coffee shop. — William Needham Finley IV (@WNFIV) May 13, 2018

Still, I pressed on to read the letter written by the owners of the Baskin-Robbins in Cameron Village. A sadness melted over me as I read each sentence.

According to the letter, the parent company of Dunkin Brands (aka Dunkin Donuts) thought the “location and the age of this store can no longer meet the brand standard” and gave the owners the choice to move to a different location. The owners declined and have decided to retire. That’s right, Dunkin Donuts kills jobs.

The letter ended, “It has been an honor to serve such a loyal group of customers and we will close happily with fond memories,” which is the classiest and most mature way you can handle this situation.

I, however, am anything but mature. I will now destroy any argument in favor of the existence of Dunkin Donuts. First, what “brand standard” does Dunkin Donuts have? What even is Dunkin Donuts? Is it a donut shop or a coffee shop? I’ve never eaten their donuts, but I imagine they taste like rocks or dog food.


For some reason, their coffee is an obsession for people from the North. Not the good North from Game of Thrones, the North that we roll our eyes at when their former residents, who now live here, try to coffee-splain how good Dunkin is to us. Full disclosure: I have some of their coffee K-cups and they aren’t even that great. I will be lighting those on fire in protest.

To align with their “brand standards” I assume they’ll build these Dunkin Donuts/Baskin-Robbins hybrid stores as stand-alone locations on some busy road instead of a nice upscale retail destination center nestled between some of Raleigh’s oldest neighborhoods and the best high school in the country.


It’s pretty obvious that Dunkin was just afraid of moving into a location around the corner from Rise Biscuits and Donuts (one of our fine sponsors). Going head to head with Rise is a donut death wish.

I shared the picture of the letter on social media around 4:00 pm on Wednesday (before the “real news” outlets even knew about the story, obvi). By the time I posted this article, the social posts received an outpouring of comments from people remembering fond times they had there.

My own mom used to go there when she was pregnant with me, and look how I turned out. People recalled taking “field trips” there during school. Broughton legend Mary Holt Collins recalled the Broughton girls soccer state championship tradition of running from the track to Baskin-Robbins.

A few more comments (my comments in bold)

Scene of my parents’ first date – (this place literally created life)

Do they not realize the patrons don’t care that the store isn’t the typical chain?

So sad! My kids will be crushed!!!

Dunkin Donuts sucks.

Is anything sacred?

Every birthday cake for my sons special day has come from that store since they could choose their cake. So sad. It’s always busy and that family (not BR/DD) has always worked hard at customer service.

The ice cream is good but the owner is great. A real loss to me and my family.

First blockbuster now this…all our good report card rewards disappearing

I’d like to mourn this loss the only way I know how, by eating an entire mint chocolate chip ice cream cake by myself in a dark room listening to The Connells. But I can’t do that. Not in a “I can’t sit around at a time like this! I’m going to stand up and fight for what’s right!” kind of way. I mean I literally cannot buy a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake anymore.


Therefore, I am calling on a city-wide boycott of all Dunkin Donuts stores, products, commercials, advertisements, and anything related to the company. If we can’t have Baskin-Robbins in Cameron Village, Dunkin Donuts can’t have our customers in Raleigh. Last night, I put a plan in motion.

Hey @RiseCameronVlg we need to talk. I’ve got a billion dollar idea. Two words: ice cream. — William Needham Finley IV (@WNFIV) May 17, 2018

This is just a start. I haven’t even talked to my attorney Stacy Miller yet to see if what Dunkin is doing is even legal. If we work together who knows what could happen.