The Dunkin’ across from YU is no longer certified kosher

The Dunkin at 140 East 34th Street, the one directly across from Stern College’s dorms and classroom buildings, is no longer kosher. For years, it operated under the supervision of Rabbi Aaron Mehlman and National Kosher Supervision, one of a small group of Manhattan Dunkin locations that carried a hechsher. That certification has now been pulled although nobody is saying why.

Neither National Kosher Supervision nor the store has put out a statement explaining the change, so anything beyond “the certificate is gone” is speculation. Certifications lapse for plenty of reasons, including new ownership, a mashgiach relationship ending and the store simply not renewing. None of that has been confirmed here, though.

This one hits close for a specific crowd: Beren Campus students who’ve treated this Dunkin’ as their default coffee stop for years, precisely because it was close enough to skip thinking about. Grads who swing by campus on visits are going to find the same storefront serving something they can no longer order.

Needless to say, a kosher certificate can disappear without the signage, the menu or the storefront changing at all, giving even more importance to the document posted at the counter. If this was your go-to, that’s the habit to build in now: check before you order, every time, even somewhere you’ve been going for years.

Rabbi Mehlman still certifies a handful of other franchise locations around Manhattan, so this isn’t the end of kosher Dunkin’ in the city. But it is the end of this one, for now at least.