Old Battleaxes

Nedick's, Longchamps, Schrafft's, Bickford's, Horn and Hardart’s are just a few of the headstones that grace the graveyard of once-proud New York eating establishments. Though in the words of L.P. Hartley, “the past is a foreign country,” and one that we tend to idealize, there is no doubt that these chains had a great deal more flair than the big national kahuna’s that have homogenized the culinary landscape, both in New York and elsewehere. Now we have Dunkin’ Donuts, Tim Horton’s, McDonald’s (whose golden arches have become no less a religious symbol than the soaring white church steeple), Burger King, Wendy’s, Arby’s, KFC, Popeye’s, Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Little Caesar’s, TGIF, Chili’s, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, Dallas BBQ and the egregiously American Applebee’s.  Nedick’s was the most modest of the old-school establishments, but its hot dogs were truly hot, and fat, spewing forth boiling fluids that derived from a unique rotisserie process. Bickford’s was a modest cafeteria that specialized in dishes like Chicken à la King, a dish that could also be found at the singular Belmore Cafeteria on Park Avenue South (popular with taxi drivers and immortalized in the Martin Scorsese classic). And then there was Horn and Hardart’s, the famed automat where coins dropped into slots opened magic doors leading to baked beans and hot dog casseroles and crocks of mac and cheese. Schrafft’s catered to a more aristocratic clientele, providing daintily cut sandwiches served by waitresses in black uniforms with doily aprons. Longchamps, an establishment popular with advertising types, furnished a cool darkness, ideal for camouflaging the surfeit of martinis quaffed down by account executives over lunch. Of all these old battleaxes, God chose to grant a second life to only one, and that was Chock Full o'Nuts, a metropolitan-area classic once proudly associated with the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson. The brand, which had been kept alive through its “heavenly coffee,” recently opened a satellite location on West 23rd Street, which serves the old donuts, cream cheese on date-nut bread sandwiches and clam chowder that were its specialties in the days of yore. Remember the Chock Full o'Nuts jingle? “Better coffee a millionaire’s money can’t buy.”

Diasporic Dining: Episode III

Every 8 seconds a new baby is born in the United States. That’s 15 babies in the last two minutes. But have you asked yourself how many new Dunkin’ Donuts have opened in that span of time? Even if you figure in a much shorter gestation period, Dunkin’ Donuts’s parents must fuck like bunnies. The proliferation of Dunkin’ Donuts has unleashed a jihad of food fundamentalists willing to throw themselves from the frying pan into the fire.

Since Dunkin’ Donuts is not a form of organic life and doesn’t contain DNA or the messenger protein RNA (which would enable it to transform into a retrovirus), what accounts for its enormous growth? The answer may be found in the poppy fields of Afghanistan, for donuts are a mood-altering, addictive substance.

The glazed variety is the OxyContin of donuts. It is a painkiller, which when inhaled can produce feelings of euphoria. Then there are the crullers, with their rococo architecture, the iced strawberry with sprinkles, the custard filled, the chocolate covered, the sugar dusted, and the spicy cinnamon. They sound like characters from a sequel to Debbie Does Dallas.—“Spicy’s in the sack with Dusty!”

There was the thousand years of Rome, the Napoleonic Dynasty, and the British Empire. What kind of global dominion is brewing in Dunkin’ Donuts’s famed coffee? Is it a nation-state, a fiefdom, or a monarchy, like the House of Windsor (or the House of Pancakes)? Let’s face it: Dunkin’ Donuts is as ubiquitous as water and potentially more plentiful. It has cracked the space-time continuum by being in all places at all times, impervious to past or present, producing the accord between the general and special theories of relativity that Einstein failed to deliver.

The creators of Dunkin’ Donuts have no beef with science or culture. They have nothing to prove. Whether or not Dunkin’ Donuts conforms to the laws of thermodynamics, quantum mechanics or string theory is irrelevant. It’s like the guy who says, “I can’t complain,” when you ask him how things are going. Dunkin’ Donuts doesn’t aspire to greatness, only triumph. Armed with hot coffee and jelly donuts, it is now on the verge of an exploit that eluded both Hitler and Napoleon—conquering the Russian winter.