100 Stores! Whoo-hoo! 
:homer:
PS They’re opening on Friday!
On a related note, there’s a bagel shop opening in 士林 (Shi Lin) (at least the sign says “bagel and coffe …” or so), it’s on 自強街 (zi qiang jie) which leads from 文林北路 (wen lin bei lu) to 西安街 (xi an jie) that runs parallel to the MRT, close to the 明德 station at the 西安街-end of 自強街. Black and red shop sign, easy to spot.
Anyone been by there today to confirm if it is open yet? Taipei Times said they would be opening today.
I feel that Tim Hortons doughnut is the best in the world!!! Hopefully I could bring the franchise to Asia, Taiwan will be the first certainly…I think Tim Hortons will rock Asia…What you all think?
i dropped by this morning around 9 or so, thinking that by going 2 hours after their 7am opening i could avoid the rush…severely disappointed to see cameracrews setting up their equipment and a velvet rope(well…airline style nylon belt ropes…cattle control?), inside the store all the chairs were stacked 10 high in front of the windows…when i asked if the store was open and if i could buy some doughnuts(which were probably all made a few days ago one at a time to look good on camera) i was told, ’ Yes we are open, u can buy doughnuts after 3pm’…what the fffffffffffffffffff man…who needs a doughnut and coffee in the afternoon…
fantastic news…well, with 2 elementary and 1 middle school nearby, 3pm is a great time to open…but for those of us who wanted to bring a box of doughnuts to the office…a real let down…f-ckin just lemme buy some doughnuts g’dammit…
Um, you do realize that the 3pm thing is probably just for today, so they can get all the media stuff done and have the formal opening and stuff, right?
hey tetsuo…thank you for pointing that out…i was just a little let down…u know…trying to get a nice box of goodies to bring to the office and all…maybe i shouldn’t let myself get all worked up over a box of fried carbs…i’ll try again on monday
We were there at exactly 11am and realized that the place wasn’t open (the sign said 2pm but they told us 3pm). Some foreigner came up and asked if they were open and they said 3pm and he turned as he said, “Fuck this” for the young ladies there to hear.
The “ugly foreigner” strikes again. I mean they will be open every day until they go out of business, like every other donut shop has.
The line was half way down the block tonight. Don’t think I like doughnuts that much.
I went to Mr. Donut today. The line was pretty incredible. I got there just before 3pm and the line stretched just past the Nissan showroom next door. They had some staff coming by to announce that it would be at least 2 hours wait from that point. That turned out to be a bit optimistic. By the time I wound my way to the front and got out, it was just before 6pm, so 3 hours in line for some damn donuts. You might want to wait for the hype to die down some before you go.
Most of the people waiting were locals, though there were a bunch of Japanese and some obvious ABCs in line too. I saw several westerners walk by, stare at the line in some bewilderment and then go away. I was the only westerner dumb enough to wait that long for donuts. If you do go by, make sure you go up and get one of the small flyers (without the picture) as it has a coupon for “buy 5 get 1 free” good from 10/4 through 10/31.
It turns out that most of the wait is because of customers being slow to order. There were plenty of staff on hand, and plenty of donuts filling the cases, just people taking a long ass time to decide what they want. It’s almost as if these people never bought donuts before in their lives. Oh wait, maybe they haven’t!
They are still working out their hours. Today they cut the line off around 4pm so they could close by 7pm. They claim to be open 11am-9pm starting Monday, and not sure when they will go to the 7am-11pm schedule like is posted on the door. For a limited time you will get a small backpack free with TWD300 purchase. Look for the table just outside the door if they still have it.
Donuts are priced at TWD25, 30, and 35 each. Hot coffee is TWD50 and includes free refills. They have a small dining room and a patio (which was being used for the serpentine line today). Many of the staff speak English, and most signs are in Chinese, Japanese and English. There is a wide variety of different kinds of donuts. They are not quite as sweet as American donuts, but they are plenty good enough to satisfy your sweet deprived tongue.
I took my two boxes of donuts back to my wife’s beauty salon where the staff and customers quickly devoured most of them in short order. Everyone gave them high marks and a bunch of them were writing down the address and phone number of the store. So much for the idea that Taiwanese don’t like donuts. The remaining few donuts got left as a tip for the proprieter at Alleycat’s where we went to get something a bit more substantial to eat after pigging out on donuts.
Hopefully the amazing turnout of customers at the first Mister Donut and the favorable reception the donuts are getting will encourage the Mister Donut company to speed up their shop rollouts.
I went by today but quickly walked on after I saw the line. They really did a great job hyping this store up! Anyone who waited 3 or 4 hours did so to be a part of the grand opening or because it’s fashionable and they want to tell their friends about their great weekend adventure. Same thing happened with the mian xian thing and then the egg tart thing.
I have a feeling this shop has a MUCH better chance of surviving than previous attempts. First, they were smart enough to put it right dab in the middle of the place with the most Westerners (automatic customer base). Second, it’s a Japanese chain this time. This gives it a certain level of prestige and means they’ll do a better job catering to local tastes.
As to the stated goal of 100 stores, well, we’ll see. The smart thing would be to go about it Mos Burger fashion. Open a few here and there, see how well it does, make adjustments, and then expand like mad.
I walked by there today and the tremendous line. I don’t want to offend anyone that’s waited in line for three hours, but what kind of fucking idiot would do that? I can’t imagine waiting for three minutes. Too bad I was by myself, because I couldn’t make insulting remarks without looking like I was talking to myself. I did it anyway, though. But not too loud.
I bought a doughnut at Carrefoure. It’s not for eating. It’s for looking through.
There’s still a three-hour line? Have there been news stories or something on it? Someone should interview the people standing in line, to find out why they’re doing it, whether they’re taking off from work, whether they’ve actually had donuts before, if they’re part of the food-fashion, i.e. egg tart crowd, etc. I expected long lines for a few days after they opened, but this is getting ridiculous.
Smart marketing. This reminds me a bit of the Krispy Kreme marketing in the US. Build up tremendous buzz, get the customers stoked for some donuts and then tease them until they get into a frenzy, then sloooowly satisfy the craving just enough to get them to come back for more and more and…
I might have to make the trek out the Tianmu after all, and be one of the flaming fools Richardm referred to :p.
what marketing 
have they even advertised? sounds like a typical taiwan fad phenomenon
one thing is for sure–this keeps up you won’t have to go to tienmu for your donuts
Anyone waiting in line for donuts for more than 10 minutes leads a very sad life…They are after all, only donuts.
richardm wrote:
Did they remember to charge you for the hole?
i live like 3 blocks from said mister donut…still haven’t had a chance to try their donuts…not willing to wait on the stupidcrazylong line…impossibly ridiculous…
Marketing is not just advertising. What they’ve managed to do here is create tremendous word of mouth with some good press management before and during the first few days. They’ve managed to create scarcity which has increased demand. They may not have done all this intentionally, but if so it was brilliant marketing.
If you want some good doughnuts, there’s a place in the craziness of ShihLin nightmarket that sells the best doughnuts I’ve had in Taiwan. It’s located just outside of the “City Jungle” place. It’s not your typical god-awful local doughnut vendor…they’re really quite good. I waited about ten seconds for mine. Fuck Mr. Doughnut.