New Cedar Rapids Dunkin’ to open ‘sometime next year’

Venue set for former Western Fraternal Life Association building

By Michael Chevy Castranova, - The Gazette

Jun. 23, 2022 2:19 pm, Updated: Jun. 23, 2022 2:40 pm

Eastern Iowa Food Service opened its Dunkin' at 2905 Blairs Ferry Rd. NE in Cedar Rapids in 2013. (The Gazette)

Eastern Iowa Food Service plans to open its ninth Dunkin’ in the Corridor “sometime next year,” said Clifford Reif, CEO and president of Reif Oil.

Burlington-based Reif Oil owns Eastern Iowa Food Service, the franchise holder for the Dunkin’ restaurants in the area.

The new Cedar Rapids venue at First Avenue and 19th Street NE, on the site of the former Western Fraternal Life Association building, will boast a drive-up window on the second floor that will be accessed from behind the building, Reif told The Gazette Thursday.

The first floor will house its bakery and other offices, he said.

Reif Oil owns the Western Fraternal building.

Robert Peck of Design Dynamics, based in Cedar Rapids, is chief architect and “has designed all our Dunkin’” sites, Reif said.

Eastern Iowa Food Service franchise’s first Dunkin’ in the Corridor, at 2905 Blairs Ferry Rd. NE, Cedar Rapids, opened in 2013.

Western Fraternal Life Association, a Cedar Rapids-based not-for-profit financial services organization, approved a merger with National Mutual Benefit, a Madison, Wis., life insurance society, in 2020. It closed its Cedar Rapids office in 2021.

Kwik Star, headquartered in La Crosse, Wisc., for a time had planned to open a convenience store at the First Avenue NE location, but met with neighborhood opposition.