"dunkin donuts" news and stories

Our new monthly installment features a portion of the popular guide, Eat This, Not That! in hopes that it will help you make better choices at casual and fast-food establishments.

I recently found myself in line at a local coffee shop behind a very nutrition-minded customer. She was asking the barista about the various food choices -- and she knew what she was talking about: Which fats were good or bad, how much sugar is reasonable, etc. That's why I couldn't believe her drink order: some kind of whipped mocha frappe concoction. All her caloric diligence went right out the window. I didn't want to be rude, so I held my tongue. But the woman made a classic mistake: She was watching what she ate, but not what she drank. The damage: more than 400 additional calories, guzzled from a plastic cup.

The fact is, a shocking number of the calories we consume at coffee joints doesn't come from the food. It comes from the coffee, and that's a shame. A cup of coffee in its raw, natural state contains only 5 calories, and coffee consumption has been linked to diminished risk of Alzheimer's [disease], better brain function, and even better memory. Coffee, in its purest, blackest form, is good for you. But too much of our coffee has been razzle-dazzled into sugary, fatty, pastrylike beverages: Instead of seizing the day with caffeinated focus, we're losing our grip on our diets.

That said, you can get your morning java boost without the accompanying belt expansion, if you know what to look for -- and what to avoid.

After the jump, an overview of the best -- and worst -- coffee drinks in America.

Joe the Plumber may not have been able to get John McCain to the White House, but can he sell can he sell a cup of coffee?

Ok, so we're not actually talking about Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, the real Joe the Plumber made famous by the 2008 presidential election. He doesn't appear in any of the ads that are part of the multimillion-dollar campaign just launched by Dunkin' Donuts. But plenty of his buddies seem to.

The Cola Wars petered out in the 1980s, but it looks like we're destined for a second decade of the Coffee Wars, with Starbucks, McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts all vying to provide bleary-eyed Americans with their morning jolt of caffeine. From what we can read between the lines of Dunkin's press release on their latest ad blitz, the company appears to be sending a blatant message to Starbucks in particular: "You can have your East and West Coast yuppies, with their New York Times tucked under their arm and absently humming along to Kings of Leon while they wait for their chai soy lattes. We'll take the average Joe."

To wit, no fewer than three hardhat-wearing construction workers appear in one of the new commercials, along with a traffic cop. A couple firemen from Georgia, who were two of the 1,000 Dunkin' Donuts fans who showed up for an open casting call in November, appear in another ad.

The good, hardworking, populist ethos is reinforced by the campaign's tagline, which reminds us that Dunkin' Donuts has always been the sort of place to drop your pretentious-sounding elocution: "What're you drinkin'? I'm drinkin' Dunkin'." Who needs "g's" at the ends of words anyways?

No doubt Starbucks elitists have another tagline for this sort of campaign in mind: average joe for average Joes.

From the return of the Jack in the Box Bonus Jack burger to a Foursquare deal from Dunkin' Donuts, here's a round-up of fast-food tidbits from today's Nation's Restaurant News:

C'mon back, Jack: The double cheeseburger with "special sauce" that Jack in the Box debuted in the 1970s is back on the menu. The Bonus Jack returns, alone and in a Jack in the Box $3.99 meal deal with fries and a drink.

Bruegger's Says "Tomato": Back for a limited time only is Bruegger's Bagel Bakery's lunch combo of a Four Cheese Panini and Fire Roasted Tomato Soup. They're also bringing back their Cinnamon Roll bagel for sweets lovers.

Dunkin's Foursquare Deal: Check in from a single Dunkin' Donuts location via Foursquare six times and get a free donut. The program has just been launched at Florida locations.

So Long, Charlie? After 29 of CB Holdings restaurants were closed (which include Charlie Brown's and Bugaboo Creek Steak House), CB has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. However, it's reported the remaining restaurants will stay in business.

Last week we announced that Dunkin' Donuts would be expanding its breakfast menu with Sausage Pancake Bites. First, the Double Down made the bun obsolete by using meat instead of bread, and now Dunkin' has taken pancakes and sausage to the next level by eliminating utensils. Each serving consists of just three "bites," and we were still hungry after this meal -- however, since one serving comes in at 300 calories, we understand why they limit us. The pancake portion of the "bite" was pleasant -- it resembles sweet cornbread more than a traditional pancake.The sausage was our favorite part -- unlike the usual breakfast sausage found at fast food establishments, this sausage has herbs and spices you can actually taste; and the sausage doesn't overwhelm the pancake with grease.

All in all, we've had much worse fast-food breakfasts. If Dunkin' Donuts brings these back for a second run, we'd suggest ditching the maple-flavored pancake and offering maple syrup to dunk in instead. Yes, that takes the "grab-and-go" theme away, but we'd much rather eat a better product than have both hands free.

The only thing scary about these small nibbles: the lengthy ingredients list. Read the rest of our review after the jump.

It's funny how the future plays out: no flying cars yet, but now a pancake breakfast you can pop in your mouth like a bonbon.

Yes, it's time to mark another milestone in the quest of American fast-food science to render utensils as obsolete as the abacus and the telegraph: Dunkin' Donuts has unveiled Pancake Bites. As the company describes them in its press release, these "portable, bite-sized sausage links wrapped in a maple-flavored pancake" are just the sort of on-the-go meal that "busy people will flip over."

We're always a little dubious of the claim that people who are so harried that they don't have time to pick up a knife and fork are actually thrilled when they're given yet another excuse not to sit down and take a break already. Nothing seems to scream "I need a vacation!" like sitting in rush-hour traffic with a bag of Pancake Bites in the passenger seat.

In any case, the pint-sized mutant hybrids look remarkably familiar, like hush puppies or mini corn dogs (which is to say that they're a bit homelier than, say, a strawberry-frosted doughnut with sprinkles). They're small, but they pack a punch: a serving of three contains 300 calories and about 20 grams of fat.

And, of course, no story about a product that's intended to be eaten on the run rather than savored would be complete without this classic tag: "Hurry, they're available for a limited time only!"