I live downtown, so this morning I set out to fill up my Tim’s travel mug with a fresh cup. Unfortunately, the two downtown addresses you listed are not converted to Tims — and they were passing out those dollar off coupons at the Fulton St Dunkin Donuts.

# 48 New Street @ Wall St., 212-483-8319
# 50 Fulton Street @ Cliff St. 212-732-6551

Since my office is in midtown, I jumped on the 2 train and got off at 34th st to try that location.

First impression was very bad.

1) Line was not too long, but very slow moving (too small a space for all those employees — bad bad setup)
2) First coffee had sugar when I asked for none, so I had to return it
3) Second coffee had roughly 3 parts cream to 1 part coffee and was unfortunately undrinkable — I was already down the street before I realized it however

I love shaking up my coffee rotation. My favorite chains here are Cosi, Au Bon Pain, Starbucks, Pax, Dunkin Donuts, and when I am in Canada, I have Tim’s about 2/3rds of the time…

…but I am going to give the NYC variants a month or so to get their act together and start acting like a real Tim Horton’s franchise before I give it another chance. What a downer…this is not the way Tim’s should be unveiled to New Yorkers.

There is another major franchisee of DD stores that went into Chapter 11 as well; THIS could also be the reason why DD’s moving out:

http://www.thedeal.com/dealscape/2009/07/dunkin_donuts_franchisees_cry.php

http://www.lamars.com/news/news.html

Damn midwesterners…. so LUCKY.

What doesn’t speak too strongly for the quality of product will be the ability for these sites to be transformed to a new chain over a weekend? Puts to question the quality standards this chain requires in their franchisees.

Harvey