William Rosenberg was one of four children growing up in Boston, Massachusetts. His father was a grocery store owner. Because of the family’s money problems, William left school in the eighth grade to help his father at his store. In his teenage years, he worked many different jobs and got a lot of experience in the food industry. When he started his own food truck service, he was surprised that about half of his sales came from coffee and donuts. William had a plan!

In 1948, William opened a coffee and donut shop which he named “Open Kettle” in Quincy, Massachusetts. A coffee was ten cents and a donut was five cents. At the time, that was very expensive, but his customers loved his products and the store was a big success. William, however, was unhappy with the name “Open Kettle” and decided to make a change. He noticed that customers often dunked their donuts into their coffee. Thus, the name “Dunkin Donuts” was born.