Uh, no.

When we moved to Durham, we were totally psyched to find that one of the like, three Dunkin' Donuts IN THE ENTIRE TRIANGLE AREA was right down the street from us. We had to drive past it to go to work. It was the greatest thing EVER. Okay. It would have been better if they had ever carried my FAVORITE donut, the chocolate frosted cake donut. They were all into the raised variety, which I do not like. Anywho! I also like the coffee quite a bit, and we would always go there and get coffee. Iced coffee even, although that is not big in the South (why, I do not know - it seems like a total haven for iced coffee!).

Okay. So we've lived here for just over 4 years and the DD had been there since before we got here. I know they had problems with getting stuff from DD - it is one of those small shops that is a Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins/Subway all-in-one, so it wasn't like the guy was getting up in the morning, saying "Time to make the donuts" and going to our DD. For a week once they had no donuts because the DD in Raleigh was not going to supply them anymore or something like that. I guess that kinda thing makes it tough to be a Dunkin' Donuts - no donuts.

Anyhow, about 7 or 8 months ago, our friend the Dunkin Donuts disappeared, as did our friend (not that I ever got anything from it) the Baskin Robbins. They were replaced with COFFEE WORLD and ICE CREAM CLUB. I was ticked. COFFEE WORLD also sells Krispy Kreme donuts! I've only had one or two Krispy Kreme donuts in my lifetime, neither of them plucked hot off of the glazing conveyor belt, but I wasn't a fan because - raised donuts. Anyhow, whatever. All of this is irrelevant except for the fact that they had the GALL to put up a sign outside that said:

"Now serving better coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts"

I'm sorry, what? WHAT? BETTER coffee? I don't think so. I don't agree with Rachel Ray on many, many things (like, for example, calling a sandwich a 'sammie'. Hello. Are we five?), but I have to say that we are of like mind when it comes to coffee. So now I won't go to COFFEE WORLD out of principle. Ugh.

Well, right across from this whole debacle there used to be a Burger King that closed a while ago and has just been sitting dormant since then. A few months ago they started remodeling it, and it became a Starbucks. I don't really like Starbucks coffee, and I don't really like the way they take over the world and everything, but I was secretly looking forward to the coffee wars, and hoping that Starbucks would teach COFFEE WORLD a lesson.

I felt really guilty about this because I thought this was a local guy's coffee shop and I know I shouldn't want the little guy to get beaten by the corporate giant. Until my favorite computer support guy came up and showed me his iPhone and pretended that he wanted to get ice cream in Manhattan. He searched for 'ice cream' in New York City and showed me all of the entries that came up, and one of them was ICE CREAM CLUB. You already know that this is a chain because I put the link up above, but this was the first I had heard of it. So! It wasn't some little local guy building his coffee shop with his own blood, sweat and tears! He was just a franchise of some other bigger company that I had just never heard of. Well, I stopped feeling bad and started looking forward to the battle.

Every day when I drive to work, I pass by the COFFEE WORLD and Starbucks. The Starbucks always has like, eight cars waiting in the drive thru line. The COFFEE WORLD does not. One car, maybe. And hardly anyone parked outside. And every morning, I take a sick pleasure in this. Better coffee than Dunkin' Donuts. Whatev.