What happened to Baskin-Robbins?
When I was a kid, there was only one ice cream store that I wanted to go to: Baskin-Robbins. They had 31 flavors of ice cream, some of which changed every month. We used to count all the flavors on the menu to make sure they weren’t cheating.
When we moved to Colorado, we quickly located the B-R stores nearby, and frequently visited. They were looking a little shabby and run-down, and the freezers were so loud you could hardly talk. But the ice cream was still delicious, and you could go outside to talk anyway.
Then a bunch of them became KaleidoScoops. Here in Colorado, a bunch of stores defected en masse. I don’t know the story, but from the little bit that I read on the KaleidoScoops web site, it sounds like B-R was screwing their franchisees.
Our local store looks nicer since the name change (although I miss all the ancient posters from the 1970s). The problem is that the ice cream isn’t the same. It’s not quite the same caliber as Baskin-Robbins was. The worst part is I can’t get Baseball Nut every spring. Baseball Nut is vanilla ice cream with cashews and a black raspberry ribbon. It’s wonderful.
Since our local store became a KaleidoScoops (2000? 2001?), we’d often take the trek up to a very old B-R store up at Colorado Blvd. and Evans. The store was really run down, but the ice cream was still tasty. Yesterday, I drove to the store in hopes of bringing home a hand-packed quart of Baseball Nut. Alas, the store has closed.
So what the hell happened to Baskin-Robbins? How do you take a brand that was as American as McDonald’s and Chevrolet, and manage it to extinction?