A Doughnut Shop’s Change Leaves A Hole

The Washington Post:

For almost a decade, the Dunkin’ Donuts in the Cabin John Shopping Center helped Clifford Snapper be a better Jew.

Every weekday morning, between stopping for prayers at his Potomac synagogue and heading to his job as a research physician in Bethesda, Snapper would stake out a table with his cup of coffee, doughnut and Torah.

‘I’d do a lot of Jewish study there every morning,’ Snapper said. ‘You had your privacy and some comfort food. For the Orthodox community in Potomac, it was really the only place you could sit down and eat something kosher locally.’

Now Snapper does his morning religious reading at his kitchen table. And the other yarmulke-wearing regulars at the shop have largely dispersed as well.

When that Dunkin’ Donuts and another in Montgomery County gave up their kosher status in February to make way for sausage bagels and other breakfast sandwiches, members of the Orthodox Jewish community lost more than just a sanctioned place for a morning nosh, they say: ‘They lost one of the few places where strictly observant Jews in the neighborhood could participate in the chain-store culture that surrounds them.’ More.