Once, the Krispy Kreme conveyor belt was alluring enough to hold the nation’s collective attention. Those days are over.
In the 1950s, founder Vernon Rudolph standardized the Krispy Kreme donut-making process by making the donut mix for all his stores in one factory and bringing in donut-cutting technology to his stores. For me growing up, seeing those donuts roll in on the conveyor belt was like an Instagram foodie experience before that was even a concept. Unlike today’s viral foods (rainbow bagels, ramen burgers), Krispy Kreme’s donuts were not a gimmick (they are absolutely friggin’ delicious), but watching them come down the wire racks felt novel at one point.
No longer! Now that the donut chain has been struggling to attract business in recent years, Krispy Kreme is wondering how it evolves from here. What’s next after your business clears the “experience” hurdle? The company’s answers currently range from “what if donuts but ice cream?” to “make a waterfall of donut glaze.”
Krispy Kreme opened a redesigned store in Concord, North Carolina on Tuesday, and its new menu is a trip—mostly because it consists of putting donuts into ice cream and then putting that ice cream into donuts (per CNN):
The menu is revamped. One of the new items is “scoop sandwiches,” a layer of ice cream with doughnuts in it, served between a sliced doughnut that can be topped with a variety of items, like vanilla, or chocolate. New milkshakes made from the doughnut ice cream can be topped, of course, with doughnuts, as well as toppings like Oreo bits.
The store also has an “enhanced doughnut theater experience,” (emphasis mine) which offers “an end-to-end view of the doughnut making process,” according to the company’s press release. How that’s different from the regular conveyor belt, which already does that, I don’t know, but I am a teensy bit curious to find out.
As if to prove the sky’s the limit for Krispy Kreme donuts, their upcoming Times Square location will feature a waterfall of donut glaze, which sounds completely fine:
Krispy Kreme is building a new location in New York’s Times Square. It will be open 24 hours a day and include a glaze waterfall. It’s scheduled to open early next year.
I’m praying for those workers who will have to deal with every tourist family’s annoying kid trying to stick his fingers into said waterfall.