Skip to main content

Sweet

Several times a week I treat myself on the way to work by stopping in at the Burtonsville Dunkin Donuts. The employees there have come to know me. I pretty much have a standing order. A large coffee, just cream, and a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel with just a little bit of cream cheese. In warmer weather it’s iced coffee. These folks are so good that they put my bagel in the toaster when I walk in the door.

I smile at them. They smile at me. I tell them how great they are at what they do. I really love that little place.

Yesterday I learned something that may just change my morning coffee routine, however. Here’s the news from OMCA Chair Jonathan Edelson:

 Now, we are pleased to announce and welcome a new merchant to the Village Center. Oakland Mills will be the home of a Dunkin Donuts in the former Columbia Bank building across from The Other Barn!   

This is huge news for the Oakland Mills Village Center. It’s not simply about filling a vacant space, although that in itself is wonderful. And it’s not just about donuts. (Although everyone who knows me knows I love donuts.)

It means that a national brand is willing to let a franchisee take a risk on a business in Oakland Mills. There’s a lot of research and analytics that go into these business decisions. I know from having served on the OMCA Board that a business location must meet a certain threshold of projected foot traffic, for instance. We’ve had feelers from other hopeful franchisees in the past that were rejected by the parent company. It’s frustrating.

This new Dunkin Donuts in Oakland Mills is going to be wildly successful. Who are its potential patrons?

OM residents on their way to work
OM Village Center employees
OMHS teachers and students
Families who patronize the Columbia Ice Rink
Families attending sporting events at Blandair Park
HoCo residents attending events at The Other Barn
Residents who are about to walk over the newly renovated Route 29 footbridge, or just getting back 

And that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head. 

But before it can be wildly successful, someone at corporate headquarters has to run the numbers and then decide that our Village Center is worth taking a chance on. “It’s just business,” one often hears. 

For us in Oakland Mills, it’s so much more than business. It’s about supporting a vibrant, healthy Village Center where people want to shop and hang out. A positive sense of place. I think that our Village is going to give this new business an extremely warm welcome.

I don’t know if I can give up my second family in Burtonsville. They’ve become a part of how I start my workdays. But I definitely want to invest in our new OM business the way they are investing in us. 

Somehow, I think I’ll find a way.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...
1 comment
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more