Krispy Kreme
Man, I love Krispy Kreme.I do. They're the best doughnuts I've ever eaten. When the first Krispy Kreme opened in Austin, there was always a long line inside and ten cars in the drive-through. It was crazy. That wasn't just an opening-day phenomenon, either--it went on for months. The lines were so long that I didn't go nearly as often as I wanted to.
That was a couple of years ago.
This week, I was close to a Krispy Kreme after dropping off George and Gracie at the vet, and I thought I'd stop by and pick up some doughnuts for the office. After I had a few.
Okay, quite a few.
I pulled into the parking lot and there are no cars. Zero. I walked in and I was the only customer in the place. It was 8:15 on a Tuesday, a prime time for both breakfast and picking up a dozen doughnuts on the way to work, and there was no one around.
I placed my order and a guy walked in to stand in line behind me. He looked around, looked at me, and said "I used to wait thirty minutes to get these doughnuts."
Amazing. And the doughnuts still taste exactly the same. It's just that hardly anyone wants them.
That's what I thought of when I saw this on Marketwatch today:
CHICAGO - Shares of Krispy Kreme Doughnut Inc. dropped nearly 20% in heavy trading Wednesday, following an 8% pullback on Tuesday.
Shares were last trading at $4.83, off 77 cents, or 13.8% after touching an all-time low of $4.05. More than 5.3 million shares had changed hands by midday, well ahead of the average daily volume of 924,000.
Krispy Creme stock was trading at $50 a share in mid-2003.
Part of the reason for the gigantic drop is that the corporation has stunningly irregular accounting practices (as evidenced by multiple financial restatements and franchisee lawsuits) and is near bankruptcy, but that doesn't explain why demand has fallen off the cliff. Even after the low-carb fad went away, people just don't want doughnuts.
Well, other people, anyway. Now that I know there's no line, I'll be fighting my steering wheel every day on the way to work.
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