Dunkin’ Donuts Joins Family

The Journal Gazette:

When the other kids left Riverside Elementary School to walk home for lunch, Kim Paton walked three blocks to the Dairy Queen on Parnell Avenue.

The small white building with a red roof and a walk-up order window was her second home. Her mom and dad were there to greet her and prepare her favorite lunch: a cheese dog with ketchup and a chocolate chip milkshake.

When she was in fifth and sixth grade, Kim sometimes stepped behind the busy counter at lunchtime, taking orders and making change.

“We let her do it because it made her feel important,” said Elaine Paton, Kim’s mother. “It was never anything we made her do. She wanted to do it. I guess you could say she was a go-getter.”

Fast forward a dozen years. One go-getter met and married another: Gavin Hart. Today, Kim and Gavin Hart operate six Dairy Queens and one Dunkin’ Donuts, which opened July 9. They plan to invest $15 million to $20 million to open 19 more Dunkin’ Donuts in northeast Indiana at a rate of two to four stores each year.

Richard Feinberg, a retail management professor at Purdue University, applauds the Harts’ savvy business sense.

Carry on reading.

Photo: Samuel Hoffman | The Journal Gazette.