kimberly ah

I was introduced to Dunkin Donuts coffee my freshman year of college. I had been there as a kid for the donuts, but I didn’t know about their delicious coffee until my boyfriend-at-the-time, Kevin, took me and some friends there for a late night snack. It was love at first sip, and I’m happy to say, my love for Dunkin Donuts long outlasted my love for Kevin (who cheated on me that summer).

My friend Jackie & I frequented that same Dunkin Donuts several times a week throughout our four years of college. We didn’t go in the morning like “normal” people. We went at night, a few times a week to chat, to do homework, to procrastinate, to make important college life decisions, for friend counseling sessions…

Our Dunkin Donuts was the old-style: with the stools and the counter and a couple of booths along the side. We always sat in the same booth. (And if you were there in our booth, we would be secretly angry at you and the minute you left, we would reclaim our spot.) We always had the same lady serving our coffee. I can’t remember a single night she wasn’t there mixing up our medium coffees with the perfectly magical amount of cream and sugar. Occasionally, other customers–particularly men too old to be trying to mix it up with young college women–would talk to us, and our lady would come over to make sure they weren’t trying any funny business.

By our senior year, we had clocked hundreds of hours at “our Dunk”. We decided it was only fitting to end our Dunkin Donuts era with a Dunkin Donuts Marathon–and no, not the running kind of marathon. On the last week of classes, we would go to Dunkin Donuts in the afternoon, sit down in “our” booth and stay for twelve hours.

We arrived just before noon and ordered 2 medium coffees with cream and sugar, and settled into our booth. Our lady wasn’t there yet, so I’m sure the daytime crew was wondering what was going on when, several hours later, we were still sitting there, drinking yet another coffee. Most of our friends laughed at our plan, but then came to visit us during our endeavor. We had forty-four visitors that day (I know this because we kept a guest book, which I still have.) We drank a TON of coffee, and ate donuts and breakfast sandwiches for our meals & snacks. We shared our Dunkin Donuts memories, chatted about our futures after college (neither of us had secured a job at that point), crafted and studied for our final exams.

The Dunkin Donuts Marathon is still one of my favorite memories from college. I moved away from that Dunkin Donuts when I got my job & my first apartment, but I found a new one near my office and I became a regular there. Not in the same way…but the familiarity of Dunkin Donuts still takes me back to the carefree days of college.

You can find previous posts from the Coffee Talk series here.

It is not overstating that coffee plays a very important role in my life. I’ve been drinking coffee since I was in high school. My best friends, Courtenay and Carrie, & I would drive thirty miles to go to an “edgy” college coffee shop, One World Coffee & Cargo in Peoria, Illinois. Nowadays, One World is much more “mainstream” than it was in the mid-nineties. (OH how I wish I had some pictures of high school me at One World!) Back then, they had mismatched furniture, couches, a small stage for open-mic nights, crazy indie art and graffiti all over the walls. And upstairs, there were a bunch of empty rooms painted with psychedelic colors. (I still wonder what happened in those rooms…) In the front part, they sold incense and hippie-looking bags and scarves. One World was always packed with college kids who wore flannels and ripped jeans and sat around having deep conversations over coffee and cigarettes.

In the beginning, Courtenay, Carrie and I would drink sweet flavored iced “cappuccinos”. Once we realized that a carafe of coffee was cheaper and lasted longer than one Vanilla Iced Capp, we quickly learned to drink the “real” stuff. The carafe allowed us to sit and talk and absorb all of the college atmosphere as we made preparations to go on our own college adventures. I’m sure the college kids thought we were ridiculously lame–especially when we brought our high school homework–but we made wonderful memories there, just the three of us.

In a classic instance of “you can’t go home again”, One World remodeled while we were in our first years of college and it never felt quite the same. Maybe it was because they got rid of the stage and the couches and the “Cargo”…but maybe it was because we had grown up a little bit, too…

I do still enjoy going back to visit for a cup of coffee and a Tomato Melt (still on the menu after all these years!), it’s just different now. I guess we all have to grow up sometime!