Munchkin Manager

Fade-out franchise

This is where the magic was made. The long-vacant Dunkin' Donuts at the foot of Main St. in downtown (or "down city") Norwich, Conn. These photos, and those of many other Dunkin' Donuts, Dairy Queens, KFCs, and other living and dead paragons of corporate culture (mostly from Connecticut) appear on the invaluable Caldor Rainbow flickriver site.

You can just make out Church Street, in the picture below, above the retaining wall on the parking lot. It curled up into the small and, in my day, very poor neighborhood of Jail Hill. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons, packs of kids would come down the hill and into the store, clutching handfuls of coins. 

Under Jail Hill

"He's here," they'd whisper, excitedly, when they saw me behind the counter. They knew I couldn't be bothered to count out the munchkins individually, as store policy dictated. If they had the money for a box of 25, they would come away with 50 or more. 

Could my act of lazy larceny explain the franchise's closing? Surely not. It didn't even keep me from being offered the job of assistant manager (more about that another time). Probably the parking lot was just too small.