Well Done, Dunkin

I must give credit where credit is due.

Jul 30, 2025

I’m kind of disgusted with myself over this blog—it really feels like I’m advocating for going to Dunkin Donuts all the time. Please, make good choices friends. But also, I love this Dunkin meal deal and I think it was a good idea. Enjoy

Dunkin Donuts has done something I thought truly impossible. They came up with a meal deal that is fairly priced, edible (maybe even tasty), and convenient. The holy trifecta. Something I feel like I haven’t seen perfected at this level in all my years.

No, many of us reading this blog, including myself, don’t really eat fast food. But let’s imagine for a moment: What if there was a convenient, cheap, and reasonably fine meal to eat out every so often? Like, we don’t shit on people for eating a fancy croissant with a cappuccino at a café once a week even though that’s not good for you. The following is an exercise in idealism: I am hoping that we can inch closer to mass-produced food that is not toxic to the human body. For now, let’s just focus on price (since we can’t even get that).

Pre-Dunkin meal deal, we had the McDonald’s value menu, but was that McChicken really keeping you full for more than an hour? Yes, we have Chipotle’s generous portions, but a bowl costs $15 in the city, cheaper lunches exist elsewhere, AND you have to carry leftovers around. Taco Bell used to have $2 meals, but who wants to go to the hospital with diarrhea after that? I think that fast food companies have effectively come up with an answer to the “I want a treat” question, but not really come up with a good answer to the “I want a meal” question.

In February of this year, what feels like eons ago already, Dunkin introduced their DunKings meal. For $6 you could get a bacon egg and cheese sandwich, a medium coffee, and hashbrowns. Let me repeat that. For six dollars, a sandwich with two types of protein on a bagel or croissant, a medium (which really feels like a large) coffee with any type of milk and flavored sweeteners, and a side of their well-seasoned and always crispy hash browns. You leave that meal feeling satisfied, caffeinated, and like your $6 really did something for you.

What the hell is $6 these days? I can’t go to CVS and get something for less than $6. Since 2021, I’ve basically given up on finding anything I’d consider “affordable” that isn’t some sort of scam. Clothing that’s “cheap” will likely fall apart and was made through unethical means, gadgets online that look like a steal might actually be non-functional, stuff that gets me excited on Facebook marketplace ends up being located two hours away and needs to be picked up with a car. “Cheap” flights end up saving me $20 with add-ons and I have to go to Newark.

Food absolutely follows the same rules. If I’m getting something really cheap, I’m expecting it to be quite bad for me and will not keep me full. So it feels like a miracle when something can buck the trend.

As consumers started to respond to a (perceived?) economic crunch in 2024, fast food chains acted swiftly. McDonald’s brought back the Value menu this year, Red Robin was caught adding 30 “bottomless” menu items, and Wendy’s replaced its 4 for $4 deal with a $5 combo meal. However, all of these options, to me, are grim. The protein/fiber : carbs ratio is way, way off—every time I have a dinner sort of meal from these places, I leave feeling worse and get hungry an hour later.

Dunkin has changed this for me. Firstly, because it is breakfast. At breakfast, I don’t need a hullabaloo. I need a coffee* and a bite to kickstart the day. Dunkin isn’t trying to rise to the level of dinner, so my expectations are already at a place that they can realistically meet.

I do not need a good* coffee. I don’t know if it’s superior genetics or what, but a sour drip coffee is truly fine with me. I like it.

Next, they have nailed simplicity. I actually like that Dunkin serves food that I could probably make at home. I don’t feel like I’m ingesting unknown nugget-related toxins at Dunkin, I recognize every ingredient in my bacon, egg, and cheese on a bagel. Also, let’s acknowledge the bagel. That is a much thicker, richer bread than you get on a sandwich or bun. The bagel, plus the bacon, egg, and cheese is a satisfying sandwich style by anyone’s standards. There’s no shrinkflation here—one egg is one egg.

Finally, and crucially, they have achieved consistency. Bodega bacon egg and cheeses are Dunkin’s main competition in New York City, and I think the benefit of choosing Dunkin is that they are exactly the same at every Dunkin, at any time. That doesn’t mean some bodegas won’t offer a better sandwich for a better price, but if you’re in transit and you need something to eat, Dunkin will always be the devil you know.

That plus coffee is already good enough, but they threw in some hashbrowns anyway. What a treat.

The downsides: Bacon really isn’t my favorite, I wish they had a sausage option. And all that bread in the morning, plus the fried hashbrowns, it’s kind of a lot. While this meal deal is a pretty good one, it’s not something I’d really have too often. What I’d really rather have is a—

NO. NO WAY!!!! WHAT!!!!!!

Yes. Right as I thought to myself, I really prefer their wake up wraps to the sandwich, they release this deal. For $1 less, I can get the meal I actually prefer.

Dunkin, I have to hand it to you. You came up with the perfect meal deal. Considering you’re a fast food chain, I find it incredibly impressive that you have made a not-unhealthy breakfast (I order two plain egg + cheese wraps and a coffee with milk) for $5 that is always 2 blocks away no matter where I am in New York City. It’s almost too good. It’s diabolical.

But why get a meal deal at all when eating at home will always be cheaper, healthier, and perhaps the most convenient of all? The short answer is I work from home and I need an excuse to go outside and take a walk some days. The long answer is I really believe in the idea of a cheap and good meal existing on a mass scale, for anyone and everyone. I think there’s a way to make it happen that isn’t really bad for consumers, although recently I’ve been learning that food companies know their sales are directly tied to how much salt, fat, and artificial coloring is in their food. I get depressed hearing about fast food chains’ efforts to further insult the customer with food that is not only unhealthy, but also deeply unsatisfying and inconvenient. Whether it’s cheap or not doesn’t even matter at that point.

Sanzo, an Asian-inspired flavored sparkling water company I’ve mentioned on this blog before, reformulated their drinks recently. On their Instagram, it’s literally all comments of people being like, “why are you adding monkfruit and stevia to this seltzer water please go back to just putting a little juice in it.” I think they’re trying to figure out how to add “healthy” sugars to their sodas to lower prices and hook consumers. But what made them so great in the first place was that they kept the flavor subtle and simple. I thought that if Sanzo got enough loyal customers, maybe the price would just go down on its own. Now, their supporters are low-key cyberbullying them and their prices are the same.

Dunkin makes me believe that there IS a way to serve the basics—regular food that isn’t ultraformulated—cheaply. I know that their food is pretty salty, processed, and has additives in it, but I’m hoping it’s about as much as the bread, sausage patties, and eggs that I can find in the grocery store myself, or get at a diner. It’s not perfect. But wouldn’t it be nice if products solved problems that consumers had, rather than created them?

A note on Tim Hortons

Just to prove I don’t eat any old slop, I had Tim Hortons when I visited Toronto in early June. It was horrific. The coffee tasted like sucking on a lemon, and the donut was coated in a brown plastic film they called “frosting.” Do better, Canada.