Dunkin Donuts: The last remaining restaurant that requires cash
This morning, I didn’t have enough bread to make my usual breakfast: a peanut peanut butter and jelly sandwich made with toast. Plus, I was extraordinarily sleepy.
So, I decided to stop at Caribou on the way to work, to get a mocha latte and a chocolate caramel muffin.
I decided to take a Vivarin instead, and wait until I was closer to work to get food; specifically, at the drive-thru Dunkin Donuts in Manassas Park. As I pulled into the drive-thru, I realized that I can’t buy donuts that way. I wanted two donuts, but I needed to check what kinds they had, and what looked good to me today, which is something I could not do from the drive-thru.
So, I parked and went into the restaurant. After picking out a drink that looked and sounded interesting, and waiting in line for a few minutes, I ordered two donuts. With the drink, the total came to $3.something, so I handed the cashier my check card. She handed it back, and said that they do not accept credit cards.
This boggled my mind, since this is 2006, and even temporary Fireworks stands, off-brand gas stations, and parking garages accept credit cards. I used to always look for the VISA/MC symbols in a store’s door/window, or ask before ordering something, if I wasn’t sure. But the thought never even crossed my mind, since it’s so rare to encounter a place that does not accept credit cards.
Well, I only had $1 in my wallet, and was not about to try to decide which ONE donut to buy. So I walked out, and continued down the road to the Giant Food grocery store. I thought that might actually turn out to be a good thing, since I could get Krispy Kreme donuts from the bakery section, there. I was bummed to find out that this particular Giant bakes their own donuts. I could have bought a pre-packaged box of Krispy Kreme donuts, but I really only wanted to get two donuts, not 6 or 12, so I went ahead and bought two Giant bakery donuts.
The donuts were too sweet, and not as tasty as Krispy Kreme would have been, so I feel like all of that time and effort was kind of wasted. I think Dunkin Donuts would have satisfied me as well, but unfortunately they are still living in the Stone Age or something.
A few minutes ago, I realized that this is not the first time I’ve been disappointed by Dunkin Donuts. A year or so ago, I stopped at the one in Herndon, and even had my kids all psyched up about getting some donnuts. No credit cards. I do not carry cash much, at all, because I prefer to use credit/check cards to keep track of where money goes. So I had to find a different place to get donuts that day as well.
So, I am hereby doing a “lazy boycott” of Dunkin Donuts. Lazy, because I very rarely go out with the intention of buying donuts, and rarely carry [much/any] cash, so I will avoid buying Dunkin Donuts without expending any actual effort. However, if the opportunity ever *does* present itself (cash + donut craving + near a Dunkin Donuts), I will go out of my way to buy some [pre-packaged if necessary] Krispy Kreme donuts somewhere else instead.
**edit**
Oh yeah, in a quick effort to see if this was a company-wide anti-cc policy, I ran across this funny story, in which (among lots of hiliarious stuff) I learned that some Dunkin Donuts stores do accept credit cards. Definitely worth a read!
http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit_card
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July 20th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
No offense, but it’s insane to walk around with ZERO cash ($1 is functionaly equivalent to $0). What if your car breaks down? What if the towing company only takes cash? What if you get mugged?
Ever heard of mug money? You carry at least 20, because if someone mugs you and finds out they did it all for nothing, they’ll beat the shit out of you — so that they get SOMEthing out of it. It’s a New York thing.
Anyway, the move towards a cashless society where everything is tracked is actually a very bad thing. So-called conspiracy theorists will tell you that the global elite want to move to one world currency, completely credit-based of course, with no real (gold) standard.
In times past, kings have made possession of gold illegal, in order to have a tighter control on the economy. After all, the treasury prints new money whenever it wants, devaluing all existing money everytime they do this. Cash is like gold. (Except american money is not on the gold standard. Thank you Nixon.)
Anyway, with respect to THAT, it’s at least good that some places are still requiring cash. Cash should not go away. That would be very bad.
Just don’t put $500 in your wallet and then drop it, like I did. That was really stupid.
April 9th, 2008 at 3:33 am
[…] So, the kids and I got unbuckled and walked all the way across the parking lot to Giant. When we got there, there was a sign on the door that said “sorry, temporarily closed” (or something like that). I guess the customers that I had seen must have been in the store when the power went out. I figured it was probably good that we couldn’t go inside, because there’s a good chance the credit card reader wouldn’t have been working when I got to the checkout, so it was good to avoid that risk, since I had no cash on me (sorry, Clint, I did not take your advice about always carrying cash). […]