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No more Kremes in Houston

February 10th, 2006



It’s at this point well-known that Krispy Kreme overexpanded, saturating the market with mediocre product instead of trading on the scarcity of availability (remember the lines outside a new Kreme store back in the late 90s and early 00s?) and cachet of its brand (Krispy Kreme is not the same as Shipley’s). Other factors claimed by KKD for its troubles include Atkins, although it’s now generally agreed that this was a smokescreen to cover its shady accounting practices and franchisee bullying.

So, in other words, this is all old news. Still, I think it’s still momentous that KK is abandoning an entire top-10 metropolitan market like Houston, even temporarily:

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts is exiting the Houston market after reaching an agreement with its Houston franchisee, Lone Star Doughnuts. The five Houston-area stores will cease operations on March 8, as will the location in Beaumont. Lone Star Doughnuts said Thursday that it will launch its own brand of doughnuts as soon as Krispy Kreme closes. And Krispy Kreme said it plans to reopen stores in Houston, but didn’t say when.

The Chron article goes on to discuss the relationship between KKD and Lone Star Doughnuts, which had devolved into litigation (the settlement of which includes this franchise pullout).

Bottom line: you’ve got less than a month to get HOT DOUGHNUTS NOW.

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4 Responses to “No more Kremes in Houston”

  1. dsandler  

    Coverage elsewhere in the Houston weblog cloud: Houstonist, blogHOUSTON.

    comment posted at 11:16 am on 10 Feb 2006

  2. Harbinger  

    During that month, you can get some gratis. Krispy Kreme has Valentine’s Day cards that are good for a free doughnut. A co-worker brought a box of doughnuts in today and some cards were with it.

    comment posted at 4:47 pm on 10 Feb 2006

  3. Dianne  

    I’ve never understood the attraction of Krispy Kreme. Walking into one of their stores and being forced to stare at the dough floating on oil with globs of sugar being poured on them… *shudder* That is -so- unappetizing.

    comment posted at 3:40 am on 11 Feb 2006

  4. dsandler.org ≡ News around Houston  

    [...] First, two articles from Houstonist, starting with a story we’ve been following here on dsandler.org: Krispy Kreme’s replacement headed down the hole. At 930 Main St., Jumbles’ downtown location, nobody answers the phone; at the Clear Lake and Missouri City stores, the phones have been disconnected; on Richmond Avenue, there’s a notice taped to the door saying that the locks have been changed because the tenants didn’t pay rent; and the Westheimer store, where all the baking is done for the area, is closed during business hours. What’s more, suppliers to Jumbles %u2014 including H. Mills Duncan IV, president of the Duncan Coffee Co. %u2014 can’t get anyone at Lone Star to answer their calls. [...]

    comment posted at 10:12 am on 13 Jun 2006

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