Fans drooling: Dunkin’ Donuts on its way to the valley

By Mike Trask

Monday, Sept. 10, 2007 | 6:59 a.m.

He knows the punch lines are inevitable. Yet without pause, Henderson police officer Danny Leath admits just how thrilled he is that 62 Dunkin' Donuts shops are coming to the Las Vegas Valley.

"This is like the second coming to me," he said. "It's not the doughnuts. It's the coffee."

Leath, a Long Island, N.Y., native, is not alone in his excitement. In a city where the $7.5 billion CityCenter is rising skyward, where billion-dollar projects have become so routine as to barely raise eyebrows, where civic energies are being poured into a quest for new mega-arenas and major-league franchises to fill them, you would think that a humble little doughnut shop would barely register on the radar screen.

Yet Leath and hordes of others are salivating over the prospect, none more so than transplanted Easterners who can't wait to blow their daily recommended caloric intake on a box of the glazed, powdered and sugar-dusted treats.

The gaudy pink-and-orange Dunkin' Donuts sign is the East Coast equivalent of the ever-present video poker machine in Las Vegas. Never, ever, does it seem an individual could be farther than a brisk stroll to the nearest "regular, extra cream, extra sugar" and maybe a French cruller.

Dunkin' - it needs only a one-word name for the faithful - holds a special place in the Northeasterner's heart, right next to the Yankees or Sox, long winters and thin-crust pizza. It is not merely a foam cup filled with medium roast coffee. It is a taste of home, something along the lines of mom's grilled cheese.

And now it's coming to Las Vegas.

Perhaps the average Southwesterner won't notice the invasion. The first opening will be in mid-October at Silverado Ranch Boulevard and Bermuda Road. Another - with signs already teasing from the windows at American Pacific Drive and Gibson Road in Henderson - will start stirring sugary Coffee Coolattas about the same time, and five dozen more will follow over the next 3 1/2 years.

"I've driven by a bunch of times to see if it's open," Leath said. He's so giddy that when he heard about the openings he sent a mass e-mail to the rest of the police department. His exuberant response was no surprise, because for years fellow officers have brought him 1-pound bags of coffee from trips East.

Don DeMichele, a Massachusetts native, is the man responsible for a good deal of this doughnut revolution. His company, Kainos Partners, will open 41 of the area shops. Naturally, the New Englander was sipping the coffee long before he put his money where his mouth is.

"I used to be a customer," he said, talking on his cell phone , which still has a Boston area code. "I'd have never thought I'd own the franchises."

DeMichele, who moved to a condo in Summerlin last year, bet on Dunkin' for the same reasons that draw all types of businesses to the valley. The region is growing unbelievably fast and people here buy - and eat - a lot of stuff.

Not to mention the mass migration to Las Vegas. Of the 168,000 valley newcomers in 2004 and 2005, 18.3 percent came from the Northeast, according to the 2007 Las Vegas Perspective, a statistical abstract published by the Nevada Development Authority. An additional 9.6 percent came from the Midwest, also a Dunkin' stronghold.

"First thing I do when I get to the (Chicago) airport is get Dunkin'," said Chicago native Maria Gara, better known as the performer Maria the SnakeBabe.

Although Las Vegas has just about everything available 24 hours a day, doughnut shops have strangely been excluded from its round-the-clock culinary and cultural offerings.

Doughnuts for the most part can be purchased here only at a grocery store, a handful of Krispy Kremes or the few stray independent bakeries. What makes that inexplicable is that Las Vegas' never-sleep attitude would seem perfectly suited for caffeine jolts and 3 a.m. orders of Bacon Lover's Supreme Breakfast Sandwiches.

"I don't know why they haven't shown up," said Paul Hartgen, president of the Nevada Restaurant Association. "Las Vegas is such a meld of coasts."

Hartgen, a University of New Hampshire graduate familiar with the Dunkin' craze, figures the stores will be as big a hit as loose slots.

Ginger Evans, a Michigan native who works at McCarran International Airport's post office, also has heard the news. She's already been driving around town trying to get a fix of her favorite snack - a Chocolate Kreme.

"It's the doughnuts," she said. "It's the morning stop."

Leath, the Henderson police officer, plans to be among the first in line in a few long weeks. Without a doubt, he'll be a regular customer, even though he realizes it will just encourage people to make the obligatory jokes about cops and doughnuts.

"The whole key to cops and doughnuts is not to get powdered sugar," he said. "The evidence is all over your uniform."

Rim shot, please!