Ina Garten Sold Dunkin' Donuts In College, But Not The Way You'd Think

As you may already know, Ina Garten has just released her memoir "Be Ready When the Luck Happens" and it's packed to the brim with insightful revelations about Ina Garten's life. The book is bubbling over with tiny details that bring the famous chef's journey up off of the page. One such detail shared in the book depicted a young Ina Garten, freshly back from her honeymoon, a little strapped for cash off at college.

In classic youthful fashion, Ina Garten had purchased a discounted fur blanket from a friend's father who happened to be a furrier; only she didn't have the funds to pay for it. Or rather, she did have some money that her husband had given her for the semester, but Ina Garten balked at the idea of using it all up on the very first day.

Drawing from the savvy wellspring that would carry the young girl to fame and fortune, Ina Garten went down to the local Dunkin' Donuts and bought a big box of the most popular types of donuts. She'd walk around the dorms in the morning, selling individual donuts to hungry students at a high markup, making some profit in the process. Before long, the upstart entrepreneur had paid for her fur blanket in full and discovered a lifelong talent for running her own business in the process.

The world is different from when Ina Garten was a college student handing out donuts in her dorm, but the inspirational aspect to this story is how timeless it truly is. Sure, the cost of a donut has gone up, but the ability of a bright young entrepreneur to turn lemons into lemonade is a tale as old as time.

Some aspects of the memoir are more indicative of her time period – like how Ina Garten got her start in the world of food by purchasing a specialty food store in the Hamptons back in 1978, which meant Ina Garten would've been 30 at the time. In 2024, the likelihood of a young person successfully transitioning from a salaried budget analyst to a brick and mortar corner store may seem relatively small, but that's not the point.

The economy changes, industries rise and fall, but Garten remains. It's the ethos behind the television personality's specific rise that give us the true insight we're looking for into how success happens. There are quite a few specialty food shops worth visiting in the U.S., and almost none that could be bought out using an individual person's savings today.