Hello All.
I wanted to have a discussion about changing the category for Dunkin’ from fast food to cafe. It falls more in line with a Starbucks, Tim Horton’s, etc. Which are categorized as Cafe. Would appreciate some thoughts on this. It is a global brand and would have a significant impact.
This article discusses the rebranding of Dunkin’ Donuts to Dunkin’ and it’s focus on becoming a coffee shop.
I think this is a reasonable thing to suggest. When I’ve been to Dunkin’s (is that the plural?) recently, it’s usually been to get coffee. Their format and set up these days definitely seems more similar to other cafes/coffee shops (like e.g. Starbucks) than, say, a traditional donut shop where you assemble your dozen by pointing at the case. All that to say, I agree that Dunkin’ is currently more of a cafe that has donuts than a donut shop that has coffee, so amenity=cafe probably makes more sense than amenity=fast_food.
Of course, beyond the logic, big changes like this have to be so worthwhile so as to overcome the barrier of altering existing tagging, a real cost in an ecosystem as big as OSM. This would be a pretty major change affecting about 14,000 locations, that would require buy in from the US community and others worldwide. One potential issue is that I don’t know the format of Dunkin’s in other countries and whether it differs from those in the US, for one. But perhaps any change could be limited to the US at first. It’s also worth considering whether any data consumers are currently relying on the existing tagging, although since the stores would be moving to another well-established tag, the chances of completely breaking an application seem slimmer.
Practically, implementing this would probably entail both a bulk edit and changing the Name Suggestion Index that OSM editors use to suggest default tagging. Just for the record, it looks like this post was prompted by an attempt to change the NSI: Update cafe.json (move all Dunkin' (Q847743) from fast_food.json) by jhutton1 · Pull Request #10829 · osmlab/name-suggestion-index · GitHub, to which a maintainer (justifiably IMO) pointed to the forum to assess the community consensus.
I agree that amenity=cafe makes more sense than amenity=fast_food for Dunkin’.
This is funny because a few years ago there was a discussion on the OSM US Slack about potentially making the opposite change for most Starbucks locations. The argument was that Starbucks had become so much like Dunkin’ (née Donuts) that it was now fast_food rather than cafe. 
Here in Spain they have been called Dunkin’ Coffee since 2007, which seems to emphasise the coffee shop aspect, but I believe was also related to an existing “Donuts” trademark. Or at least I think of them as Dunkin’ Coffee … but looking at their website now they seem to have moved towards plain Dunkin’. I must pay attention next time I am in a shopping mall or train station.
In any case I don’t have strong feelings about which one would be correct for Spain - they certainly serve a lot of coffee, but donuts are still displayed prominently and lots of people buy trays of donuts to take away.
But that is only a side-issue compared to what the world is really waiting for: a definitive decision on the correct tagging of totally-legitimate-and-not-in-any-way-a-shady-ripoff Duffin Dagels. Currently their 4 locations in Spain are split 2 each between fast food and cafe tagging.
Are dagels glazed bagels?
Yes It’s a good decision. Delicia is also relies in the cafe category like Starbucks,Tim Horton’s etc.
To me, both of these things are cafes. When I think fast food, I tend to think “this place is playing for easy to make favorites within their cuisine category”. When I think cafe food offerings, I think “some continental-breakfast-adjacent options and similar treats”, so like donuts, muffins, cookies… maybe something approximating a sandwich or a hot pocket if you’re lucky. I think classifying Dunkin or Starbucks as fast food is a much longer stretch than classifying QuikTrip, Sheetz and Maverik locations as fast food, given your average gas station from any of those chains is going to have a wider food menu than your typical Dunkin or Starbucks. And I don’t think QT, Sheetz or Maverik should be reclassified.
If I were looking for a cafe, and someone suggested Dunkin’, I would be very disappointed.
I mean, if I were looking for a cafe and someone suggested Timmies, I’d also be disappointed. But I wouldn’t be confused by the suggestion since I can’t argue that Tim Hortons isn’t a cafe.
(oops forgot to make my point lol: If Dunkin falls into a similar situation, then yeah I guess Dunkin is a cafe)
If Dunkin’ is a café, Walmart is a boutique…
If had to choose one single amenity= value to assign to all Dunkin, Starbucks, & Tim Hortons locations, then I guess I’d go with cafe. Really they all have a range of location types though. Some have a nice amount of seating and are set up to be places where you might hang out while enjoying your coffee and/or food. cafe fits for these sort of locations even if I wouldn’t personally call theme Cafés. I’m not sure about Tim Hortons, but both Dunkin and Starbucks have a lot of locations with very little seating if any, and a focus almost entirely on to go orders. fast_food fits better for these types of locations. 
Just offering how Timmies compares on that in case that matters here.
From my experience, there are three experiences of Tim Hortons in Canada:
This is a great point. Can you call something a cafe if there’s no seating at all?
If I were looking for a fast food and someone suggested Dunkin’, I would be even more disappointed…
Seems we need amenity=fast_cafe…
No one has mentioned McCafé yet? It even has an accent mark in the name, so you won’t be left disappointed.
That would be how amenity=cafe started out, but as the project grew internationally and we belatedly learned about drive-through coffee kiosks and tea shops and boba tea shops, skunking this tag felt expedient compared to popularizing new amenity=* values and convincing renderers to support them. In theory, drink:coffee=served says they serve coffee, while cuisine=coffee_shop says it’s the kind of place you go for that coffeehouse ambiance. In theory.
Drive-through kiosks are always awkward, no matter what they do. At some kiosks, you drop off your dirty laundry; does that make them shop=dry_cleaning, even if you don’t carry any dry-cleaned laundry home in a bag? Then there are coffee stands on the sidewalk, street_vendor=yes. Feel free to sit over there on the bench at the bus stop.
I suspect people care about this issue partly out of surprise when a style like OSM Carto labels Dunkin’ with a hamburger icon. We also tag Dairy Queen as amenity=fast_food, not amenity=ice_cream. Their hamburgers are not so great, but still better than the ones at Dunkin’. 
In my understanding amenity=cafe should have the main focus on serving coffee and in some cultures maybe as well cake.
I would argue that Dunkins main focus is not selling a cup of coffee, therefore shouldn’t be a café. If they would serve cake instead of donuts you would all it a bakery. Though my European stomach prohibits me to call it a bakery…
Dunkin’ has been difficult because of brand extension. They’ve long been known for their doughnuts, but in dropping the “Donuts”, they aspire to be known for their coffee and atmosphere. More recently, they’ve also branched out into flavored ice tea. It’s the low-cost, low-grade option in all four categories.
Meanwhile, words like “café” and “coffee shop” have high-brow connotations that might be relevant to some users but not others. It reminds me of how, for years, I tagged any restaurant that serves steak as cuisine=steak_house before others corrected me, noting that the term “steakhouse” is for formal white-tablecloth restaurants only, hence cuisine=steak. I don’t drink coffee and lost interest in steak years earlier, so I will always know Dunkin’ as cuisine=donut.