Photo by David Greene
Coffee lovers, get ready! Workers are putting the finishing touches to the remodeling of the once popular, “Twin Donut Plus,” in preparation for the grand opening of a new Starbucks branch in Norwood.
The former coffee and donut outlet, located at 3396 Jerome Avenue and East 208th Street, which was part of the Twin Donut franchise founded in Boston in 1959, closed in July 2018, as previously reported by Norwood News. The site has remained vacant ever since.
According to a filed “RPTT and RETT” document with the Office of the City Register, the property appears to have been sold by Alice L. Kulick 1, LLC to Senior Poncholo Restaurant Corp in 2008. Both RPTT and RETT are taxes that apply to real property transfers when the ownership percentage being transferred, granted, assigned or surrendered is more than 50 percent.
Meanwhile, according to NYC Department of Finance, RPTT applies whenever the sale or transfer is worth more than $25,000. An amount of $93,000 was listed as the “document amount,” with the City Register in relation to 3396 Jerome Avenue.
However, in another section of the City Register site, the owner of the property is listed as Alice L Kulick. Norwood News has reached out to the City agency for clarification on the current property ownership and will update this story upon receipt of any feedback.
Prior to its closure, the donut shop had been in operation for more than 50 years, according to Liz Camcran, an employee of the Twin Donut franchise company who spoke to Norwood News at the time of the closure in 2018. According to Camcran, the building was “under renovation” and she said at the time, “they’re selling the franchise.”
Chris Cheong, a worker at that time for Wok Wok restaurant, located across from Twin Donut Plus, said at the time, “It might be because of the rent.”
The business did reopen for one evening on the night of Oct. 1, 2018, but not to the public. On that occasion, it was used as a movie set for a brief scene from the film, “Joker,” starring Joaquin Phoenix.
Photo by David Greene
Calls to the local Starbucks manager, as well as to the corporate office in Chicago, IL., were unsuccessful. However, one local Starbucks official told the Norwood News on Monday, Sept. 20, the new location would be open in a matter of days.
Reaction to previous Starbucks branch openings in the Bronx has been mixed, as reported. When a newsstand that used to sell coffee, located inside One Fordham Plaza, was allegedly precluded from doing so following the arrival of a new, nearby Starbucks branch, the resulting backlash caused a subsequent reversal of the decision.
As noted, the Norwood branch of Twin Donut Plus was part of a franchise and closed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. An economic report on the impact of the pandemic on the Bronx, published in June 2021 by the New York State comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, found that the borough is comprised of mostly small businesses, and in the ten years leading up to the pandemic, businesses in The Bronx increased by 15.3 percent, as reported. This was a faster growth rate than seen in both Manhattan and Staten Island.
The report found that the sudden and dramatic closure of businesses amid the pandemic across New York City hit the leisure and hospitality sector the hardest, as an earlier report from DiNapoli detailed. In the Bronx, it meant the loss of 9,600 jobs , a 45.6 percent drop in that sector by the summer of 2020.
Since most businesses in the borough are small businesses, the measures put in place to combat the health impacts of the COVID-19 virus forced many of these small businesses to close. Some, but not all, business owners were able to rely on economic relief to stay afloat. The comptroller’s report also found that programs such as the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans served as vital resources to some but were slow to reach all businesses in the borough.
Photo by David Greene
Meanwhile, aside from its coffee business, Starbucks also runs a foundation, the mission of which is “to strengthen humanity by transforming lives across the world, with a focus on enabling community resiliency and prosperity and uplifting communities affected by disaster.”
The foundation supports “thriving communities through grants to nonprofit organizations, from its hometown in Seattle and neighborhoods across the country, to coffee and tea-growing communities around the world.”
According to the foundation’s website, its neighborhood grants are investments that help build sustained, local impact and inspire increased partner volunteerism with nonprofit organizations that work in local communities. Through the program, the foundation invites Starbucks partners to nominate a local organization in their community.
Since 2019, Starbucks partners have nominated “thousands of organizations across the U.S. and Canada, with more than 2,500 organizations receiving grants amounting to more than $5 million.”
Photo by David Greene
The foundation also works “to strengthen communities affected by disaster by investing in response and preparedness programs.” In 2020, according to its website, the foundation supported local and global COVID-19 initiatives that extended emergency assistance to those in need while also helping build a path toward recovery and resilience, including more than 400 Neighborhood Grants to support COVID-19 community response.
Jennifer Tausig, executive director of the Jerome Gun Hill BID, which is based in Norwood, said, “We’re thrilled to welcome Starbucks to the neighborhood, and as a member of the BID. Tausig said the BID believes the new outlet is a great compliment to the existing food and coffee options on Jerome Avenue. “We are grateful that Starbucks recognized Norwood as a clean, safe, good place to do business,” she added.
*Síle Moloney contributed to this story.
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.
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