A popular Dunkin (Donuts) coffee and donut shop on the White Horse Pike in Lawnside reopened this weekend after a three month closure.
I stopped in today for a delicious Dunkin iced coffee and was greeted by smiling employees who are happy to be back on the job at their favorite Lawnside location.
While I was not a regular customer of this location (to fully explain any new differences with the reopening), 42Freeway readers tell me that the tables and chairs are all new for the location as well as additional upgrades.
Back in December 2024 this Dunkin location was closed for the Christmas holiday, and at 2:00 AM Thursday morning on the 26th of December, firefighters were dispatched to the Dunkin to battle a heavy fire which had started in the area of the drive-thru window.
According to Josh Bakan of the Patch, crews were able to control the blaze in about 20 minutes. No one was injured in the fire.
Photos posted on Facebook by the Lawnside Fire Company showed significant damage in the area of the drive-thru window and behind the main counter area.
While clearly every Dunkin location is popular particularly for morning commuters, this Lawnside location seemed to be exceptionally busy due to his placement on the westbound side of the White Horse Pike where morning commuters are heading towards the Rt 295 entrances, or traveling through Haddonfield towards Cherry Hill.
Car after car traveling on the White Horse Pike can easily turn right into the Dunkin parking lot, head to the drive-thru for fresh coffee and donuts.. and then just as easily pop back on to “the Pike” to start their day.
As is the case with most Dunkin locations, Lawnside offers a drive-thru window which was actively taking customer orders during my visit today.
A surprising bonus aspect of this location is it seems to be larger than many other area Dunkins and offers a variety of seating options and even two decorative fireplaces. They even offer televisions!
This larger size is likely due to the fact that this location has been open for over 30 years, back to the days when Dunkin Donuts baked their donuts within each location.
Into at least the 90s, each Dunkin location operated its own full donut bakery with large mixers and cooking appliances on-site. Every variety of donut sold used to be made directly in the store, with the cream filling added and icing placed on top!
In most recent decades Dunkin moved to a centralized bakery model where a large facility bakes donuts fresh each day, and they are immediately distributed to all of the area stores.
While I don’t recall if Lawnside had this feature, but older stores (such as Brooklawn) even had a full wrap-around counter with stools, where customers could drink delicious coffee, fresh donuts, and would you believe… a changing variety of soups!
This required older stores like Lawnside to be developed with larger footprints… and today that now extra space was likely repurposed to improve the customer in-store dining experience.
The Dunkin website says this location is open from 5:00 AM to 8:30 PM every day of the week.
Links and Locations
Dunkin Lawnside – Now Reopened
263 White Horse Pike N
Lawnside, NJ