Dunkin Donuts...

[tapestrybabe]

i wonder if other ppl have
noticed this too...
or maybe its just me...

but yeah, whenever i go into
a dunkin donuts...
it seems mostly indians i see
working there...

that same thing goes
for duane reade too...

[ism]

I think it depends where you live. Here, Filipinos run the Dunkin Donuts.

There was an article I read a couple months back about how immigrant groups tend to corner a particular franchise. It starts with the first immigrant who, for whatever reason, starts with one. Then his friends and family, knowing he's forged a successful path, copy him. The immigrant group in this locale are all networked and this pattern spreads, leading to the perception that a franchise is run by one ethnic group.

Not too much different from Chinese immigrants a hundred years ago being forced into running laundromats. The only difference is that the immigrant today has a wider choice of what type of business to run.

[s1eve]

Over in New Zealand, you see Indians running the KFC franchises.

[haplesshobo]

it depends on the part of the country which minority ends up running the donught shops. here, it used to be cambodians who recently immigrated. it doesn't matter whre, but it usually ends up being immigrants who are willing to run the donught shops. its sad, but the guy responsible for introducing donught business to the cambodian community lost literaly everything- his business, his fortune, his wife, etc... he gambled it all away.

the reason you're getting newly arrived immigrants is that a donught shop is difficult to manage with really long hours. the immigrants usually makes it a family affair and that keeps down labor costs. plus, it doesn't hurt you that much if your english is limited.

for all those factors, that's why you see immigrants who tend to flock to donught shops. but, as their children grow up and they no longer can use them to help run the store, it becomes more unmanagable. as you rise on the socioeconomic ladder with more oppurtunities, running a donught shop just isn't worth the hassle. the children aren't interested in it as they have other oppurtunities. eventually, you'll see them sell it off to another wave of immigrants. and, so the cycle continues.

[pablohoney]

I never go to Dunkin Donuts, but I've noticed that the last 3 Supercuts I've been to (in the Seattle-ish area) have been predominantly staffed with recently immigrated Vietnamese women. I just noticed it happening the past 3-4 years. It's like an underground railroad or something!

[hooligan]

Khmer peeps in LA, Chinese Khmer sometimes.

[thaite]

It's the same thing here, only with little taco stands. And they're all named something-'berto's

Filiberto's
Aliberto's
Roberto's
etc.berto's

[robotic]

a lot of indians have surnames that reflect an ancestral-run business (or one that the family had indulged in in the past), beginning with the type of business, then ending with '-wala' meaning "of" (often 'seller' in connotation) e.g. topeiwala (topei = hat)

[kasia]

sure they're not cambodian?

here ya go:

Donuts Anyone?
Cambodian Americans own some 90 percent of California’s donut shops
By Debbi Gardiner
When Mann Lee arrived in the United States from Cambodia in 1984 looking to set up his own business, he opted to open a donut shop. Lee found that for a $40,000 investment, he could open and operate a store and then easily sell it to a friend when he was ready to leave town. Sixteen years later, Lee still resides in San Francisco. He owns and runs two donut stores—one in downtown San Francisco and the other in China Basin—to the tune of $60,000 in annual profit for each shop. Lee has joined the ranks of thousands of other Cambodian Americans in California that have been frying donuts, brewing coffees, and frothing milk for decades.

Cambodian Ownership
The notion that California’s donut stores are predominantly owned by Cambodians may seem bizarre. “Our customers are mostly Caucasians. It is odd that Cambodians are doing this work—considering that most Asians don’t eat donuts and prefer noodles or other Asian foods,” Lee said while making a customer’s latte at the Happy Café, Lee’s donut cafe on Powell Street.

But the attraction is clearly there. Cambodian-owned donut stores began proliferating in Southern California back in 1976. Cambodian Chinese entrepreneur Ted Ngoy got his start when he discovered through his work at the Winchell’s donut franchise that making donuts wasn’t “too high tech.” So he borrowed some money, purchased a few stores and employed family members to help.

“Ngoy is the one who found a way for Cambodian immigrants to become part of the American dream of owning their own business,” explained Dennis Wong, spokesperson for the Asian Business Association. “Taking a loan from an Asian loaning society, Ngoy was able to buy two stores, operate them for awhile and then sell to someone in the community or a family member who wanted to buy them. That’s how they got into it”.

Wong compared the Cambodian hold on the donut market to the proliferation of Italians and Indians in their respective industries. “Italian immigrants are often working with restaurants, Indians with newsstands and hotels. With Cambodians, it happens to be donuts,” he said. And the investments have paid off. The popularity of donuts has seen few limits since its invention in Holland 250 years ago.

Controlling a Large Market
Winchell’s Donut’s VP of Brand Management, Lou Franson reckoned that the donut market in the United States is worth a whopping $3 billion dollars. Though good statistics are hard to find, Franson said that there are 1,800 independently Cambodian- or Korean-owned donut shops in Los Angeles alone. And the San Jose Mercury reported that California has approximately 5,000 independent donut shops and that Cambodians own as many as 90 percent of those independent franchises.

Why the Proliferation of Cambodian-Owned Shops?
David Chau, manager of Donut Star on Market and 7th Street wondered whether the comfort of working with other Cambodians and the absence of language barriers is part of the appeal. “Getting hired at a place where your boss and colleagues speak Chinese was a real incentive for my wife and I [to] take on this work five years ago,” Chau said. “The prospect of working without language barriers and amongst the comfort and familiarity of [our] own folk is attractive.”

Another theory speculates that the initial outlay for a donut shop falls within the new Cambodian immigrants’ affordability range. Franson said that the start up fee for a new donut store is fairly minimal. “In a secondary or tertiary location in L.A., you could set up for around $40,000. That’s if you have minimal tables inside and don’t buy new equipment,” Franson said. In San Francisco, Lee estimated the initial outlay as being a little higher. “Fifteen years ago, it would cost around $60,000 to start out a donut store in San Francisco,” said Lee. “Now it could go up to $100,000—which is still expensive but not impossible.”

Hardships Still Exist
Nonetheless, running a donut store is arduous work—requiring brutal early morning or late night shifts and a lot of hard labor. “It’s not easy work at all. As a family we are working seven days a week, the store is open 24 hours, and we have no family time. It’s tiring,” said a 26-year-old Chinese American who requested anonymity. Her parents own and manage the Van Ness Donut Bakery and Café.

She added that because their operation is family immigrant-owned and not under the protective umbrella of a big chain like Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts, people feel they can walk in and snarl racist remarks at the employees. “Especially when English isn’t your first language, you have to contend with customers being rude to you because of language barriers. We are told to go back to our country. Contending with drug addicts isn’t easy either,” she said.

What’s more, making the donuts requires skill, diligence and long working hours. “Usually the cook comes in to make the donuts around eleven at night so they will be fresh in the morning, then leaves around three or four in the morning,” she said. “There are different kinds. [Most] have to be hand cut... if it’s not done right, they won’t be fluffy, but flat. All the flours, old fashioned, cake and the raised, need the yeast to settle in before you can even begin,” she explained.

Nonetheless, the hard work and pooling of family resources pays off and many donut stores are very successful. Franson says that because donut stores run by close-knit family members—who usually put in long hours without wages—have low labor costs, the small donut businesses usually gross about $100,000, bringing in roughly $40-50,000 profit a year. Depending on the size and location, rewards reaped can be even greater. Lee said that while profits fluctuate, his upscale Powell Street donut café can bring in up to $80,000 in profit a year.

Trending Downward
Despite the relative success, the general consensus amongst Cambodian donut store workers is that the number of Cambodian immigrants coming to the United States to buy up donut stores is dwindling. Tommy Te, manager at the Van Ness Bakery and Café said, “we don’t see donut stores bought by recently-arrived Cambodian immigrants [nearly as much] these days.”

Perhaps part of the cause for the downturn is a sharp decrease in numbers of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees coming over to the U.S. “The economy in Cambodia is probably improving,” said Victor Hsi, Business Director at the South East Asian Community Center. “Some people who came over ten years ago came to escape the war. Those things are now in the past, which means fewer Cambodians are leaving [their homeland],” he said. Lee wondered whether the surge of dot-com companies buying up property and raising the cost of real estate is making it more difficult for Cambodian immigrants to start up their own business.

But Hsi thinks that higher real estate prices are unrelated. “The real reason is that donuts are not as commercially viable as they used to be,” he said. “Changes in people’s food choices are changing towards healthier things. And donuts aren’t the healthiest thing to eat.”