Dunkin’ Donuts and Other Criminals in Little Edgewater: Treating the Poor and Homeless like Dirt
By Steve Larsen, one of our reporters from Evanston
This is a story of the daily happenings at the furthest north location of the famous Dunkin’ Donuts world. Only a few more buildings to the north, and they would be out of Little Edgewater.
This is the neighborhood I write about, up north on Broadway and running into the Devon/Sheridan/Loyola corner where Rogers Park takes over the story.
Random customers fall into different categories—like in a caste system—and they are treated in Dunkin’ Donuts—and other unmonitored businesses—just exactly the way the manager wishes. If a person does not look rich or like a student (Loyola) or like somebody visiting from out of town, they are treated like the “other.”
For many years, employees at the Dunkin’ Donuts almost out of Little Edgewater have been treating the disadvantaged like krap. Why? Because they can—and because the manager encourages it.
The manager—we will call her Manisha—is happy to harass people who look tired, who do not purchase much, who dose off, and who try to use coupons like dirt. She has a long history of this, as YELP and other pages will tell you, time after time. Year after year.
Whatever the source of unhappiness (who knows???) she is vicious to about half the customers in the store. She is a terribly unhappy, impolite, and vengeful woman.
She is worse to the poor and homeless who make the mistake of dropping in there for a coffee or snack.
Not being from around here, she is perhaps under the mistaken notion that Dunkin’ Donuts is a super classy, ritzy, cool and happening kind of restaurant in which to dine. Maybe she had seen in movies that donuts and coffee are a sign of great American wealth, prestige, honor, and importance?
If you are poor and/or homeless (not all people are both!) then she will already have plans for you before you walk in the door. Be prepared: she has it out for you and will protect her little random kingdom from lower-class persons like you! If you need to use the restroom or have a question or they gave you the wrong item, you automatically have a long wait ahead of you.
For many years, it has been a game to see how long somebody needing to use the restroom to be able to get the attention from the chicks working the window (facing the other direction) to actually acknowledge you are waving and pleading for the bathroom. Eventually, as they laugh like wild animals, they push the secret button to open the door.
Where would this bathroom game come from? Ignoring the poor and homeless who need the facilities?
Manisha is in charge—she runs all the games.
The famous coupons at Dunkin’ Donuts are another hassle. If you fill out the survey online (listed on the receipt) you will get a code to write in the blank on the back. The back of the receipt has just become what is known in this country of choice we live in as a “coupon for a free donut.”
Manisha will try to tell you they don’t do that there, or tell you it is expired, or try to give you the very cheapest donut in the store.
--Do they have to pay 2 cents more for the fancy donuts?--
Or she and her employees will tell you customers may only use a coupon ONE a month…
Or they will try to tell you the coupon expires after one week—even though it says right on it the coupon is good for 30 days…
Or they will try to tell you “that program ended…”
Most people who need to use the coupon to get a free donut need a break. Some might be homeless. Some might be poor. Others might just be frugal. However, Manisha does not want that—she is the only one who gets to be frugal.
Manisha hates poor and homeless people. And she wants to be free to treat them like dirt.
So just what kinds of customers does management want to treat well? It seems as though the persons racing into the store to get their “pre-ordered-on-an-app” latte’ and sandwich are preferred. Employees race to make sure these chosen royalty receive a correct order, with a smile, with the exact type of napkin fold, and the exactly correct flip of the wrist.
Often these exalted customers are driving fancy cars (often foreign ones creating more people sleeping on the sidewalk).
Drive-through customers are also exalted, receiving their orders quickly—with three or four chicks racing to serve them, slide their card, and get everything out that little window before taking a breath.
Again, people driving those Toyotas and BMWs and KIAs are treated like royalty… getting their orders so darn fast! Throwing those Chicago residents outdoors, into the tents, onto the sidewalks and into the alleys to sleep.
Management at the Popeyes Chicken next door has their own game: refusing to honor their own coupons!
On the back of every single Popeyes Chicken receipt, there is a key to a survey to fill out to get free chicken. You can either scan the box or go to the website and fill out this survey. Either way, you receive a “code” to write on the back of the receipt. You are supposed to go back to Popeyes Chicken to get your free meal. You must purchase a large drink, and you will get your chicken and a side. However, it does not go smoothly…
Poor people trying to get the free meal will be told, “We don’t have a scanner, so we can’t do that.”
Or “We don’t know what that is.”
Or “We don’t do that here ‘cuz we’re not that kind of Popeyes Chicken restaurant.”
Or “That is probably from a different location, so we cannot honor it.”
Or “We don’t participate in that program at this location.”
Or “It’s on there, yeah, but nobody really does that.”
Or “It might be on there, but I have never seen one of those before.”
Arguing about it, of course, can raise Armageddon… other customers wanting to order, the employees trying to wait on them when it’s not their turn yet, and very unhappy, threatening responses from the employees (whom the manager has told not to honor the coupon)…
No argument works.
You have to go online, complain to Popeyes Chicken central offices… and they will send you a $5 coupon for anything you want to buy. Though it might be good to go to a different location where you will not be recognized.
YELP AND ALL THE OTHER REVIEW PAGES WILL TELL YOU HORROR STORIES ON THIS LOCATION OF POPEYES…
We won’t even go into the way the poor and homeless are treated at the fast food place one block south, in the heart of Little Edgewater. They are not welcome. They will be thrown out and sometimes even banned, with calls to the cops threatened.
So what kinds of customers are welcome here? Families, students, criminals, and people from outside the area are welcomed. People with a lot of cash. People doing their business there.
If you are blind, you will not notice the criminals selling drugs and stolen goods from all the stores in the neighborhood.
The famous burger joint down the street, in the next block, is a handy place to visit indeed. It is typical of the hypocritical sort of management, employees, and frequent customers doing what they have to do to get their fix. The fix can mean different things…
Though everyone in the building will swear there is no crime going on, nothing stolen being sold for pennies on the dollar, and no criminals sitting in the dining room.
So just what kinds of customers does management want to treat well at this fast food oasis? It seems as though the persons racing into the store to get their fix or sell their fix or sell their stolen goods are the ones who get the preferential treatment. Selling their drugs and things they stole from Whole Foods (Fireball?) and walkers (Walgreens?) and other stores.
What is scary about Little Edgewater, though, is that this burger joint is NOT the only place you can buy all these goodies. Hang out in the area restaurants and you will see all kinds of random guys selling all kinds of random items.
Diapers? Hair wands? Doritos? Cologne gift sets for men? Conditioner? Wine?
If you are blind, you will not see the criminals everywhere—the ones who are dragging the neighborhood down…
Fencing operations bring $$$ dollars $$$ for Fentanyl and other goodies… and the neighborhood is bustling with drug activity.