Krispy Kreme

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Krispy Kreme

Post by storewanderer »

Krispy Kreme went out of business in Reno about a decade ago. The business failed- too few customers and too much overhead to deliver a few trays donuts to gas stations all over the place (they had a route out of Reno that had stops along the way but ended with a drop of donuts out to a single gas station in Battle Mountain, NV every night).

Now a different franchisee has come and built a new Krispy Kreme out in Sparks. Today was opening day. I decided to go out there around 9:30 PM to see what was happening there. The Krispy Kreme is located basically at the intersection of State Route 445 and Los Altos directly at the intersection. The drive through line of cars wrapped across the entire driveway of the shopping center (in front of Cost Plus, Bed Bath and Beyond, Ulta, Best Buy, etc. and wrapped alongside Best Buy onto "Shoppers Way" and then behind the Best Buy onto Galleria Pkwy (less than 10 cars wrapped onto Galleria) across from the Costco. I have never seen anything quite like this... literally hundreds of cars. These people could probably spend less time driving to the next closest Krispy Kreme in Roseville vs. doing this...
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Re: Krispy Kreme

Post by klkla »

storewanderer wrote: March 17th, 2021, 12:56 am Krispy Kreme went out of business in Reno about a decade ago. The business failed- too few customers and too much overhead to deliver a few trays donuts to gas stations all over the place (they had a route out of Reno that had stops along the way but ended with a drop of donuts out to a single gas station in Battle Mountain, NV every night).

Now a different franchisee has come and built a new Krispy Kreme out in Sparks. Today was opening day. I decided to go out there around 9:30 PM to see what was happening there. The Krispy Kreme is located basically at the intersection of State Route 445 and Los Altos directly at the intersection. The drive through line of cars wrapped across the entire driveway of the shopping center (in front of Cost Plus, Bed Bath and Beyond, Ulta, Best Buy, etc. and wrapped alongside Best Buy onto "Shoppers Way" and then behind the Best Buy onto Galleria Pkwy (less than 10 cars wrapped onto Galleria) across from the Costco. I have never seen anything quite like this... literally hundreds of cars. These people could probably spend less time driving to the next closest Krispy Kreme in Roseville vs. doing this...
I'm sure they were doing promotions to bring more people in for the grand opening but it has been my experience here in SoCal that Krispy Kreme's are generally pretty busy. That one in Reno must have been somewhat of an anomaly and occurred at a time when they had opened too many stores in a short period. Since their reorganization they seem to be back on track.
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Re: Krispy Kreme

Post by storewanderer »

The Reno one that closed 10+ years ago was run by a Las Vegas-based franchisee, toward the end it was dirty and staffed poorly but the product was good if you went to the location and got it. If you tried them in the gas station freshness was a big issue. Also most of the Krispy Kremes in Northern California (those were corporate as I recall) closed around the same time; most of them were pretty low volume. A few like Daly City and Newark which were very high volume stayed open all along and eventually transitioned from corporate to a franchise. A number of those in NorCal that closed have since reopened under a franchisee WKS (same franchisee as this new Sparks one), with varying degrees of success. Some seem to do well. Chico is definitely not one that is doing well but it is still open. In N Out owns the real estate on those co-located sites with Krispy Kremes in CA and they got WKS to reopen the closed locations.

I am glad that WKS outfit gives the brand a second chance in these regions where it previously failed.
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Re: Krispy Kreme

Post by pseudo3d »

I know Krispy Kreme has been in and out of Houston at least once before, with several stores built in the early 2000s only to close later, and the "new" Krispy Kreme opening a few years ago with a variety of locations. Not sure how the "new" Krispy Kreme is doing, the stores have been big hits upon opening, but things have been a bit slow recently. Their scatter-shot development already has seen one store close just a few years after opening (iffy area but still) and even today there's maybe a half-dozen in the Houston area, mostly in more suburban areas (none in the "Inner Loop" area).
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Re: Krispy Kreme

Post by ninersdd »

storewanderer wrote: March 17th, 2021, 11:58 am The Reno one that closed 10+ years ago was run by a Las Vegas-based franchisee, toward the end it was dirty and staffed poorly but the product was good if you went to the location and got it. If you tried them in the gas station freshness was a big issue. Also most of the Krispy Kremes in Northern California (those were corporate as I recall) closed around the same time; most of them were pretty low volume. A few like Daly City and Newark which were very high volume stayed open all along and eventually transitioned from corporate to a franchise. A number of those in NorCal that closed have since reopened under a franchisee WKS (same franchisee as this new Sparks one), with varying degrees of success. Some seem to do well. Chico is definitely not one that is doing well but it is still open. In N Out owns the real estate on those co-located sites with Krispy Kremes in CA and they got WKS to reopen the closed locations.

I am glad that WKS outfit gives the brand a second chance in these regions where it previously failed.
There was one that opened in 2000 right down the street from me, and the lines for it were very long, like I have never seen anything like it when it first opened. There already was a small donut shop next door to it. Yet 5 years later the small donut shop survived and Krispy Kreme had closed
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Re: Krispy Kreme

Post by buckguy »

They seem to do best in the absence of local donut stores that remind people what an actual donut should taste like. They also are popular with tourists. I thought the donuts weren't great years ago when I lived in Nashville and they aren't any better now, basically fried corn syrup and most of the stores use frozen dough now.

They expanded too quickly when they had a bit more of their cult status and there were multiple financial scandals as well as problems with they way they interacted with franchises. I assume that JAB (the current owner) is better at all this, although Peet's seems to be having problems on the retail store side---they were shrinking pre-COVID and have subsequently closed a great many stores including all of the ones in DC.
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Re: Krispy Kreme

Post by storewanderer »

The first time they failed in Reno we did not have many local donut shops left (a few former Winchells and a couple others) none of which were really all that successful for a variety of reasons including execution and location. Since then we have gotten at least 7 other new local donut shops which are located better and execute better and they have been relatively to very successful.

I have been surprised how poorly JAB has handled Peet's. Even in Northern California, Peet's feels like it is dying off. Totally different atmosphere there than before. Maybe it just wasn't a good fit.
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Re: Krispy Kreme

Post by arizonaguy »

pseudo3d wrote: March 17th, 2021, 12:44 pm I know Krispy Kreme has been in and out of Houston at least once before, with several stores built in the early 2000s only to close later, and the "new" Krispy Kreme opening a few years ago with a variety of locations. Not sure how the "new" Krispy Kreme is doing, the stores have been big hits upon opening, but things have been a bit slow recently. Their scatter-shot development already has seen one store close just a few years after opening (iffy area but still) and even today there's maybe a half-dozen in the Houston area, mostly in more suburban areas (none in the "Inner Loop" area).
That's exactly what happened in Arizona.

A number of new Krispy Kreeme stores were built and opened in the early 2000s only to close a few years later (I believe the franchiser who owned the Arizona market went out of business). There are now "newer" stores that seem to be doing better but they have to compete with an expanded Dunkin Donuts as well as a number of very good local chains which have expanded recently (BoSa, Rainbow, etc.).
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Re: Krispy Kreme

Post by Alpha8472 »

Krispy Kreme in Concord, California opened in the late 90s as a corporate store and closed a few years later. It was abandoned for about 5 years and was reopened as a franchise. It does decent business now as it is run much better by this new owner. The donuts are fine, but it is only because there are not too many independent donut shops open until 10 PM. Most local shops are only open for morning donut sales.
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Re: Krispy Kreme

Post by Super S »

This chain seemed really popular for a while, and local fundraisers often took place selling Krispy Kreme donuts, even though it's about a 30-45 minute drive to the nearest location. But the novelty seems to have died off as I have not seen one of those fundraisers for a few years now.
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