Granite State’s holy grail: Dunkin’ Donuts.
Welcome to the Church of Dunkin’
New Hampshire doesn’t have cathedrals. It has Dunkin’ Donuts. And they’re everywhere. Like, everywhere. Drive through any town, from Nashua to North Conway, and you’ll see at least three Dunkins within sight of each other, like fast-food Stonehenges dotting the landscape.
To outsiders, it looks like overkill. To locals, it’s survival. Coffee here isn’t just caffeine; it’s an intravenous lifeline in a paper cup, ideally double-cupped so you can still feel your fingers at 6 a.m. in February. The state motto should probably be updated from “Live Free or Die” to “Medium Iced, Two Cream, Two Sugar.”
Dunkin’ in New Hampshire isn’t a chain. It’s a culture. Little league teams huddle there after games. Campaign staffers plot strategy between jelly sticks. High schoolers loiter like it’s Parisian café society, if Paris served Coolattas. Presidential hopefuls, forced to pander to local tradition, show up awkwardly clutching a cruller, declaring, “I too believe in the power of Munchkins.”
There’s a kind of quiet faith about it. Folks talk about their Dunkin’ order with the reverence usually reserved for baptismal names. “Large iced, caramel swirl, extra pump of liquid sugar” isn’t just a drink, it’s a creed. Every Dunkin’ cup on the dashboard is a roadside shrine, every drive-thru line at 7 a.m. a moving congregation.
And then there’s the unspoken hierarchy. True believers order iced coffee year-round, even during snowstorms. Lukewarm heretics switch to hot coffee when it drops below zero. Apostates occasionally betray Dunkin’ with Starbucks — but they are shunned, forced to drink pumpkin spice in exile.
It’s not that New Hampshire doesn’t have other coffee shops. It’s that Dunkin’ has transcended commerce. It’s basically a utility. Electricity, heat, Dunkin’. Without it, the state would collapse into chaos: town meetings canceled, snowplows parked, political campaigns grinding to a halt.
Maybe it’s absurd. Maybe it’s a little embarrassing. But if religion is about ritual, community, and comfort in the face of a cold, hostile universe, then Dunkin’ really is the state’s church. The parking lot is the fellowship hall. The drive-thru window is the confessional booth. And every Styrofoam cup handed through that window is communion: body of Christ, Boston crème.
So yes, New Hampshire worships Dunkin’. But really, what’s stranger — a state bound together by faith in caffeine, or one bound together by faith in politicians?
