Everything about Dairy Queen totally explained
Dairy Queen, abbreviated to
DQ, is a global
chain of
ice-cream and
fast-food restaurants. Its first location was founded in 1938 by John McCullough and since 1940 it has used a
franchise system to expand its operations globally. Its largest franchisee is the Texas Dairy Queen Operating Council which runs the majority of DQ locations in the state of
Texas.
Dairy Queen International is the parent company of Dairy Queen. In the US it operates under the American Dairy Queen title. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of
Berkshire Hathaway. At the end of its fiscal year 2006, Dairy Queen reported over 5,600 stores in more than a dozen countries; about 4,600 of its stores, or approximately 85%, are located with in the
United States.
History
Sherb's was the name of a small ice cream shop that opened on South West Avenue, in
Kankakee, Illinois on
August 4,
1938. The proprietor of the store, thirty-year-old Sherwood Dick "Sherb" Noble, a native of
Clemons, Iowa, had been associated with dairy products from his teenage years. What his customers were offered that day in Kankakee for 10¢ was a new semi-frozen, "
soft serve" dairy product formulated by a recent acquaintance and new business partner, J. F. McCullough. The Dairy Queen companies and franchises recognized Sherb Noble as the "original Dairy Queen operator."
The first Dairy Queen outlet was opened by Noble in
Joliet, Illinois on
June 22,
1940. DQ was an early pioneer of food
franchising, with the 10 stores of 1941 expanding to 100 by
1947, 1,446 in
1950 and 2,600 in
1955. The first store in Canada opened in
Estevan, Saskatchewan in
1953. The present Dairy Queen logo was introduced in
1959. The company became "International Dairy Queen, Inc." (IDQ) in
1962. It was acquired by
Berkshire Hathaway in
1998.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Dairy Queens in small towns of the Midwestern and Southern United States, especially
Minnesota, were often a center of social life. In that role they've often come to be referenced as a symbol of life in small-town America, as for instance in
Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflections at Sixty and Beyond by
Larry McMurtry,
Dairy Queen Days by
Robert Inman, and
Chevrolet Summers, Dairy Queen Nights by
Bob Greene. Some of the popular items on the Texas menu include the Hunger-buster and Belt-buster hamburgers.
Bob Phillips, host of a popular Texas syndicated television program named
Texas Country Reporter was the longtime spokesman for DQ in Texas. Dairy Queen appears in many small Texas towns and uses the nickname "The Texas Stop Sign" to illustrate their presence.
Today
With 5,700 restaurants in 22 countries as of
2005, Dairy Queen is one of the largest franchises in the world.
Its main competitors today are
Baskin-Robbins,
Coldstone Creamery,
Braum's,
Carvel,
Culver's,
Foster's Freeze,
McDonald's,
Sonic Drive-In,
Tastee Freez,
TCBY and (to an extent)
7-Eleven.
Stores
The company's stores are operated under several brands, all bearing the distinctive Dairy Queen logo and carrying the company's signature soft-serve ice cream (along with the trademark "curl").
Dairy Queen
Stores which serve a very abbreviated menu featuring primarily DQ frozen treats. These locations may be open only during spring and summer; many year-round locations are located in shopping malls.
So-called "Limited Brazier" locations may additionally offer hot dogs, barbecue pork sandwiches, and in some cases French fries and chicken, but not hamburgers.
DQ / Orange Julius
Also known as the "Treat Center" concept, an enhanced version of the original DQ also serving drinks and foods from the
Orange Julius menu. This is the company's preferred concept for new, small-scale locations.
Dairy Queen Brazier
Stores serve a normal fast-food menu featuring burgers,
french fries and processed fried chicken products in addition to frozen treats and hot dogs. Due to the protracted rollout of the Grill & Chill concept, Brazier restaurants have been allowed to sell certain products originally restricted to G&C, including GrillBurgers.
The "Brazier" name has been slowly phased out of signage and advertising since the early 1990s, although it hasn't generally been removed from existing signage. New locations (for example built since the early 2000s) that feature elements of the Grill & Chill store design, but which are similar to Brazier restaurants in terms of size and menu selection, usually carry the name "DQ Restaurant".
DQ Grill & Chill
DQ's preferred concept for new and renovated full-service restaurants. Stores are larger than older-style DQ Brazier locations and feature a completely new store design. In most cases, they offer an expanded menu including breakfast, GrillBurgers and grilled sandwiches, as well as limited
table service (customers still place orders at the counter).
Texas Country Foods
Most locations in Texas, including those which otherwise resemble the Brazier or Grill & Chill formats, use a separate menu branded as
Texas Country Foods. Among other differences, "Hungr-Bustr" burgers are available in place of the Brazier and GrillBurger offerings.
The Texas Dairy Queen Operating Council is the largest of all Dairy Queen franchises. Texas is home to the largest number of Dairy Queens in the U.S. The TXDQOC runs a separate marketing website from the national website, located at
www.dqtexas.com
.
Dairy Queen has been a Texas staple since 1948
Other stores
DQ also operates the
Karmelkorn and
Orange Julius brands, the latter often appearing adjacent to DQ's. DQ's current franchising efforts are primarily to open
shopping mall outlets and Grill & Chill stores.
Products
The company's products expanded to include
malts and
milkshakes in
1949,
banana splits in
1951,
Dilly Bars in
1955,
Mr. Misty slush treats in
1961 (later renamed
Misty Slush, then again to
Arctic Rush), and a range of
hamburgers and other cooked foods under the
Brazier banner in
1958. Other popular items include
ice cream sundaes and the blended
coffee drink, the MooLatte, controversial because of its resemblance to the racial descriptor Mulatto.
Dairy Queen's one hundred (
as of 1997) Japanese stores offered hamburgers, but competition from
McDonald's made the chain switch to
pita sandwiches.
The Blizzard Treat
A very popular Dairy Queen treat today is the
Blizzard Treat, which is ice cream mechanically blended with add-in ingredients such as sundae toppings and/or pieces of cookies, brownies or candy. It has been a staple on the menu since its introduction in
1985, a year in which Dairy Queen sold 175 million Blizzards.. The Blizzard was invented and copyrighted by Richard, Ronald, and Ralph Medd of Iowa. It is traditionally served upside down to prove the thickness. The most popular Blizzard flavors include
Oreo Cookies,
chocolate chip cookie dough,
M&M's (
Smarties (Nestlé) in Canada),
Reese's Peanut Butter Cup,
Kit Kat, and
Butterfinger. Seasonal flavors are also available such as
November's
Pumpkin Pie Blizzard. It has been argued that Dairy Queen drew its inspiration from the
concrete served by the
St. Louis based
Ted Drewes.
As of
June 21,
2005 the World's Largest Blizzard Treat was built in
Springfield, Massachusetts. It weighed 8,224.85 pounds at 22-feet tall.
In addition, Dairy Queen is marketing its new Blizzard's Cake which includes flavors such as
strawberry cheesecake and Reese's. Much like the restaurant's conventional
ice cream cake, this variation is aimed toward celebrations and birthdays.
Advertising
For many years the franchise's slogan was "We treat you right!" In recent years, it has been changed to "DQ something different."
In Texas, at the end of the advertisement, there's a Texas flag waving, and the Texas state with the new DQ logo and slogan below saying, "That's What I Like About Texas."
Dennis the Menace appeared in Dairy Queen marketing from
1971 until
1999, when he was dropped because Dairy Queen felt
children could no longer relate to the
comic strip character.
2004 marked the restaurant's first full year of national advertising with award-winning television
commercials. Such ads commonly relied upon humor to appeal to viewers.
Logos
| Evolution of the Dairy Queen logo |
Logo circa 1955 |
Logo used from 1961 to 2000 |
Logo used from 2001 to 2007. |
Current logo |
Global locations
Countries currently with Dairy Queen locations:
|
|
|
|
Country formerly had DQ locations:
(Withdrew from around 2000)
(Withdrew from around 1999Further Information
Get more info on 'Dairy Queen'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://dairy_queen.totallyexplained.com">Dairy Queen Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
