...Thursday, March 11. That's according to a press release I just received. The store will open at 5 a.m., and the first 100 people through the door will receive $2 gift cards. The rest of the press release has some interesting information about franchise owner Michael Geller's history with the DD brand and the rest of the opening day festivities. View it below. Gut Check has followed the saga of the franchise opening since day one.
Read the press release after the jump...
At 9:30 a.m., Mayor McDowell and Jerry Potthoff, a director with BackStoppers Inc., will join Geller and other Dunkin' Donuts officials to cut the ribbon on the store opening and officially kick off the Dunkin' Donuts Beverages for BackStoppers' drive at the new restaurant. As part of the opening celebration, Geller will donate 50 percent of all first-week beverage sales, up to $2,500, to BackStoppers, which provides support and financial assistance to families of fallen police officers and firefighters.
Geller, who until recently lived in New York , said he's long wanted to return to the St. Louis area and bring the Dunkin' Donuts brand with him. "My mother and aunt have operated Dunkin' Donuts in New Jersey , where Dunkin' Donuts has a major presence, for more than 20 years. I grew up with it, always loved the business and always loved the products," he said.
Geller earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Rochester , but both he and his sister Suzie, who will work with him in St. Louis , obtained advanced degrees from Washington University , with Michael earning both law and MBA degrees. Michael returned to the East Coast and practiced corporate and securities law at Cahill Gordon and Reindell LLP in New York before spending the last few years working exclusively in his family's network of 10 Dunkin' Donuts stores. "It was just a matter of time before I decided to go off on my own and return to this area I called home for four years," Geller says. "The last Dunkin' Donuts in this market closed about ten years ago, but the brand never really had a strong presence here. I aim to change that."
