The company may be closing many locations in the U.S., but Krispy Kreme Doughnuts has decided that Asia is where the action is, especially in places that worship anything "new and Western," like Tokyo and Hong Kong. Kriskpy Kreme blamed the downturn in their fortune to the No-Carb Obsession of the Americans; perhaps they will have better luck here in Asia, whose people seem to have higher metabolism and to know moderation (although these days in China the children of the nouveaux riches seem to have expanding girth).
I was passing through the Shinjuku Southern Terrace back in December 8 of last year when I realized that there was a new addition to this commercial stretch that had already included a Starbucks and a seafood restaurant. It was the Krispy Kreme shop, and the sign said, "7 Days" until the opening, on December 15. Inside of the store, staff were working full time, doing a dry run, if you will. The machine was humming and doughnuts were being produced, and instructions were given to the underlings. At night time, with so thousands of practice doughnuts in abundance, they did not know what to do except to give them away to passersby.
Since its opening on December 15 until this article was written, the store never ran out of doughnuts and the new customers who loved them. Not only were faithfuls, new converts, and the curious patiently queued and filled the raised terrace area in front of the shop, but the line also continued at another side of the building (at the beginning of the bridge that connected the area to the Takashimaya department store), prompting the company to hire security staff to direct traffic from that line to the terrace.
I still remember in the mid-90s, when Krispy Kreme hit California. Not only was the line inside snaked all the way outside, but the drive-through queue caused traffic jam in the parking area of a mall complex in East Bay. I had my first taste of KKD in the mid-80s, when I was schooled in the South (Louisiana and Tennessee). I remember that when I went to one of the shops in Nashville, it was just like a diner, complete with at least two of the city's finest (police) perched at the counter. The shop was located in a rather deserted area, and from outside, the scene could pass for a stepsister of Edward Hopper's famous popular painting "Nighthawks." Who would have guessed that one day, I would run across Krispy Kreme at one of the hot spots of one of the most exciting metropolis in the world.
