tangent) What's interesting for me about Dunkin Donuts and Tim Horton's is that they are owned by truly international companies (Allied Domecq and Wendy's, respectively). The owners of each of these companies are moving them outside their regional base--I'm not sure how successfully--with far less fanfare than is Krispy Kreme.
2) That bastion of Southern high culture, Hooters. That bastion of equal opportunity hiring, Cracker Barrel.
3) Regional identity through chain stores may best be expressed through food, because the buying power of large corporations is less important in the restaurant business, where labor and operating costs dwarf the cost of inventory. Other sorts of regional chain stores--discounters and the like, for example--find competing against national chains to be extremely tricky. In the Northest, the long-term worry of the managers at Shaw's or Stop & Shop is not each other, but how long it will take Wal-Mart to introduce big groceries nearby.
--tim francis-wright