Choiwing Kong ’15, Staff Writer
Dunkin’ Donuts has finally come to Merrimack College this fall semester, 2013. It is the first branded fast-food restaurant on campus. Merrimack College students are happy about the new movement of Dunkin’ Donuts. “It’s pretty cool to have DD on campus and that I don’t have to drive 5 minutes away to grab some coffee and be late for class anymore,” says Linda Wu ‘15, from Merrimack College.
Students used to have coffee either in the Dining Hall or buy them at Zebbie’s, a small café in McQuade Library with limited types of food or drinks offered. There were no other options to have coffee on campus other than going off campus. Since Dunkin’ Donuts opened, people on campus seems enjoy the new facility so much. “We sell around 400 to 500 cups of coffee a day” says Pan Devoid, the manager of the new Dunkin’ Donuts. It is an impressive sales number by Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s opened 7 days a week from 6am to 9pm, which really satisfies most of the students’ needs. “You can have the sandwich at 8am in the morning also at 9pm in the evening” says Pan. Although Dunkin’ Donuts does not have special menu for Merrimack, it offers all kinds of food and drinks from day to night. Students can buy breakfast, lunch and dinner at any time of the day which makes most of people like it better than Zebbie’s, which only sells bagels for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and dinner. The existence of Dunkin’ Donuts does affect the selling of Zebbie’s in some way.
Students are able to swipe their Mack card to pay for the meals in Dunkin’ Donuts that one Mack point equals to one dollar. This really benefits students because Merrimack will offer certain amount of extra Mack credits to students if they have purchased the meal plan. Students can actually use those free credits to buy Dunkin’ Donuts if they want, which saves money for those students that are on a budget. Dunkin’ Donuts also offers part-time jobs for Merrimack students. “We actually have few college students working here right now,” says Pan. Dunkin’ Donuts does have a certain contract with Merrimack College, but only high-level group of managers know about the detailing of the split of profits.
It is a successful movement to have Dunkin’ Donuts on campus. The nice tables, sofas and the warmed-colored decorations in Dunkin’ Donuts automatically makes it a good place to hang out with friends on campus and make the Merrimack daily life more interesting.
