Dairy Queen
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| Dairy Queen Inc. | |
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| Type | Public (NYSE: DQ) |
|---|---|
| Founded | August 4, 1938 in Kankakee, Illinois |
| Founder | Sherwood Noble |
| Headquarters | , USA |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Slogan | Something Different |
| Website | www.dairyqueen.com |
Dairy Queen (also known as DQ) is an ice-cream shop and fast-food restaurant franchise in the United States and Canada that was founded in 1940.
With 5,700 restaurants in 22 countries as of 2005, Dairy Queen is one of the largest franchises in the world. Much of its early growth occurred in rural areas of the United States, and references to the small-town "DQ" occur repeatedly in both the popular and literary culture of the USA. For many years the franchise's slogan was "We treat you right!" In recent years, it has been changed to "DQ something different." The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, and its headquarters are located in Edina, Minnesota.
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[edit] History
"Herb's" was the name of a small ice cream store that opened on South West Avenue, in Kankakee, Illinois on August 4, 1938. The proprietor of the store, thirty-year-old Herbert Dick "Herb" Noble, a native of Clemons, Iowa, had been associated with dairy products from his teen-age 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." Another early Dairy Queen operator was Bud Bergstrom, who operated Dairy Queen #7 in Springfield, Missouri (His daughter, Julie and her husband Les, operate it today), and they've recently celebrated their 60th anniversary with the DQ system, making them the longest running Dairy Queen still under the same ownership. This particular DQ spawned the career of former US Attorney General John Ashcroft. [1]
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.
Dennis the Menace appeared in Dairy Queen marketing from 1972 until 2002, when he was dropped because Dairy Queen felt children could no longer relate to the character.
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.
A very popular Dairy Queen treat today is the Blizzard, which is ice cream with candy bits blended in; it has been a staple on the menu since 1985. It is traditionally served upside down to prove the thickness. The Blizzard was modeled after the concrete treats of the Midwest from frozen custard shops like Ted Drewes in St. Louis, Missouri, and include the Ted Drewes' tradition of holding the cup upside down to demonstrate the thickness. [2] The most popular Blizzard flavors include Oreo Cookies, chocolate chip cookie dough, M&M's, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, and Butterfinger. [3]
During the 1950s and 1960s, Dairy Queens in small towns of the Midwestern and Southern United States, especially Texas, were often a center of social life. In that role they have 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.
The company's stores are operated under three brands, all bearing the distinctive Dairy Queen logo and carrying the company's signature soft-serve ice cream (along with the trademark "curl"): Small Dairy Queen stores (which serve a very abbreviated menu featuring primarily DQ frozen treats and hot dogs (for some restaurants, foot-long hot dogs), and which may be open only during spring and summer or located in shopping malls); medium-sized Dairy Queen Brazier stores (which serve a normal fast-food menu featuring burgers, french fries and processed fried chicken products in addition to the frozen treats and hot dogs; and large (and new) DQ Grill & Chill stores which have an expanded menu including breakfast. Most Texas Dairy Queens are not part of the Brazier chain, but have Texas Country Foods branding. IDQ 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.
Its 100 (as of 1997) Japanese stores offered hamburgers, but competition from McDonald's made the chain switch to pita sandwiches in that country.
[edit] Notable products
MooLatte is a blended coffee drink produced by the company, introduced in May 2004.[1] The name of the drink has been criticized because of its resemblance to the racial term 'mulatto'. Critics point out the composition of the drink in relation to the name: vanilla ice cream and dark coffee concentrate. DQ states that the name comes from the idea that the drink is coffee-flavored like a latte with dairy in the form of ice cream, which comes from cows.
[edit] Peanut Buster Parfait
A Peanut Buster Parfait is an ice cream treat sold exclusively at Dairy Queen restaurants. It is about half a foot in height, two inches in diameter at the top and with a neck tapered down to one inch at the bottom. Peanut Buster Parfaits are made with hot fudge, soft-serve ice cream and peanuts, although some customers prefer to have caramel added as well.
The very bottom of the cup has one layer of toppings, then an inch and a half of ice cream, then another layer, more ice cream ending in a tapered ball with curl, and yet again more toppings.
[edit] Brownie Earthquake
The Brownie Earthquake is an ice cream treat also sold exclusively at Dairy Queen. It's served in a wide round dish. Two balls of ice cream with a curl on top is made in the center. Two brownie halves are put on either side, with one pump of hot fudge, and two pumps of marshmallow. Crumbled Oreo cookie is placed around the sides, with whipped cream placed on the adjacent sides to the brownies.
[edit] Pecan Mudslide
The Pecan Mudslide is a DQ treat thats container has a thin base, that flares out at the top. It's shorter than the Peanut Buster Parfait dish however. It's made with half a pump of hotfudge, half a pump of caramel fudge, and pecans on the bottom, with ice cream placed on top in a tower form. On top of that is another half pump of caramel fudge, half pump of hot fudge, and another spoon of pecans.
[edit] Brazier burger
Brazier is a brand name of hamburgers and hot dogs that was created by the Dairy Queen restaurants. The DQ began selling them under that name in 1958, and the brand is still being used as of 2007.
[edit] Competition
Many other restaurants, including McDonald's, serve or have served soft ice cream. Many small towns have offered soft ice cream from locally-owned establishments. Several of DQ's most direct franchise competitors were:
- Tastee Freez, operated in the Midwest with stores mostly in the Southeast.
- Culver's, the largest single distributor of frozen custard nationwide.
- Cold Stone Creamery
- McDonald's, frozen treats on menu
- Baskin-Robbins
- Carvel
- Daisy Queen, who were eventually halted by DQ through legal action.
- Quarry Queen, originally located in Sandstone, Minnesota. DQ stopped them from expanding to other cities. Quarry Queen eventually went under in the early '90s.
- Dairy Delight or Dairy Deelite, primarily in the South Central/Dixie region.
[edit] Original Dairy Queen logo
[edit] Trivia
For approximately 30 years (early 1950s to 1983), Dairy Queen was the only franchise restaurant operating on lower Cape Cod, in Provincetown. After its closing, another franchise restaurant would not open on the Lower Cape until 1996.
Many Dairy Queen restaurants were originally Druthers restaurants, which themselves used to be called Burger Queen restaurants.
Mark Cuban once ran a Dairy Queen in Coppell, Texas, (a Dallas suburb) as part of a PR move.
While filming War of the Worlds nearby, Tom Cruise and Stephen Spielberg stopped by a Dairy Queen in Lexington, Virginia. Cruise deposited $5,000 cash into a jar placed at the restaurant to help pay the medical bills of a local girl injured in a go-kart accident.
Prison Break fugitive Charles "Haywire" Patoshik is sighted at a Cedar Grove, Wisconsin Dairy Queen, during the episode "Subdivision" -
A large cookie dough blizzard has the highest calorie of any single DQ item, at 1320 calories.
NASCAR driver Tony Stewart was sponsored by Dairy Queen in his early days of karting.
[edit] Notes
- ^ DQ@everything2.com. Retrieved on 2006-05-30.
- ^ Reed, Bill. "Blizzard approximates St. Louis original concrete", Colorado Springs Gazette, 2005-04-15. Retrieved on 2006-05-19.
- ^ DQ Blizzard Fan Club: History of the Blizzard. Retrieved on 2006-05-19.
[edit] Locations
- USA
- Canada
- Mexico
- Caribbean - Bahamas
- Central America - Panama
- South America
- Africa - none
- Europe - none
- Middle East - Bahrain, UAE (Dubai Airport)
- China and Hong Kong
- Pacific-Asia - Thailand, China, Singapore, Philippines, Cambodia, South Korea, Guam, Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia
[edit] References
- Caroline H. Otis, et al. The Cone With the Curl on Top: The "Dairy Queen" Story. International Dairy Queen Inc., 1990.
- S.E. Hinton, et al. The Outsiders 1967
[edit] External links
- dairyqueen.com - Dairy Queen Consumer website
- CakesByDairyQueen.com - A website dedicated to DQ Frozen Cakes or Ice Cream Cakes by Dairy Queen
Categories: Cleanup from February 2007 | All pages needing cleanup | Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange | Articles lacking sources from January 2007 | All articles lacking sources | Berkshire Hathaway | Dairy Queen | Fast-food franchises | Fast-food chains of the United States | Fast-food chains of Canada | Fast-food burger restaurants | Ice cream parlors | Hot dog restaurants | Companies established in 1940 | Companies based in Minnesota
