Dunkin' Donuts enters Starbucks' territory

updated 6:51 p.m. ET May 17, 2005

FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio - Dunkin' Donuts, long a mainstay in the East, is using Cleveland as a test market, launching 90 new outlets in a blue-collar region with a waistline ranked among the nation's heftiest.

Dunkin' Donuts hopes the push in northeast Ohio and selected other regions will make it the coffee stop of choice in head-to-head competition with the omnipresent Starbucks. But don't expect comfy leather couches in the Formica world of Dunkin' Donuts.

"We want to be Dunkin' Donuts, not Starbucks," said Jay Patel, who opened a showcase store in Fairview Park in February as the chain based in the Boston area began a high-powered expansion into the Midwest. He eventually hopes to own six with his brother.

The strategy could work with people like Daniel Griffith, 30, a bicycle courier who knows the coffee territory in Cleveland.

"I like Dunkin' Donuts better, but I drink Starbucks more often because they are everywhere," Griffith said during a delivery stop within one block of a Dunkin' Donuts and two blocks of a trio of Starbucks locations in downtown Cleveland.

Griffith has become weary of the image of lounging in Starbucks over a latte. "That's the thing that's annoying about Starbucks to me. It's become way too trendy to go to Starbucks. It's so cliche to go," he said.

Patel, 32, who immigrated from India at 17, said Dunkin' Donuts customers favor rush-hour drive-thru convenience over the yuppie ambiance of Starbucks.

"It's a good neighborhood, business is getting better," said Patel, surveying the store and its "go to work" location on the inbound lanes headed to Cleveland. That allows drivers to get into Dunkin' Donuts without turning against traffic, a time saver in the morning.

That kind of attention to detail along with attractive real estate prices and what the chain politely calls Cleveland's "high proliferation of coffee and bakery consumption" were critical in selecting the city to help boost its national profile, according to Will Kussell, chief operating officer of Dunkin' Brands Inc. in the U.S.

The chain, which sells 2.8 million cups of coffee daily, hopes to open 10 stores in the Cleveland area by August and 90 within three or four years. Other big pushes have begun in Cincinnati, Tampa and Jacksonville, Fla., Charlotte, N.C., and Nashville, Tenn., as Dunkin' Donuts moves beyond its traditional New England and New York home base.

The Dunkin' Donuts move comes as Americans increasingly look to specialty coffees. According to the Specialty Coffee Association of America trade group, gourmet coffee has grown into a $9 billion industry in the United States, up 20 percent in six years.

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