Earlier this month, Dunkin’ Donuts opened shop on our main drag, and if you haven’t noticed, it’s kind of a big deal.
For more than a week now, there has been a massive queue outside. People are lining up out the door and down the block. We are, to say the least, really excited about this new addition to our budding culinary scene.
It’s amusing, then, to note that many of our readers from abroad are actively grieving on our behalf. On the day Dunkin’ Donuts opened, we posted a photo gallery full of delighted Icelanders, only to be bombarded with condolence messages from around the world.
“I trust the people of Iceland will have a brief, meaningless flirtation with Dunkin’ Donuts and then call the whole thing off,” someone said.
“Sad that all the American crap cannot be kept out,” another person said.
“Why do you want to do this to your beautiful country!? Keep our shitty corporations out of your country!…” yet another said. “Keep Iceland pure!”
And they kept coming:
“I’m sorry.”
“Bummer!”
“This is unconscionable.”
“That sucks! The amazing and charming thing about Iceland was the lack of wasteful and shitty corporations.”
But they’ve got us all wrong, we thought, we’re not this pure country free of big corporations. We have loads of them! And we love them! In fact, when McDonalds opened in Reykjavík, our Prime Minister showed up to eat the very first burger (see that glorious photo above!).
So, we thought, let’s set the record straight this issue and attempt to explain why Icelanders consider the arrival of multinational junk food franchises a really big deal.