ROGUE DAIRY QUEEN

July 27, 2015 11:00 AM

Nowadays, if you go to a McDonald's in San Diego, odds are you'll see the same menu as your cousin in Miami who happens to be at her local McD's. But back in the early days of franchising, companies often signed contracts letting franchisees considerable latitude in their menus. And some of those franchisees are still operating under those old, old contracts, including the Dairy Queen in Moorhead, Minnesota.

The rogue Moorhead DQ flaunts its independence with a "Local Menu," including Nathan's hot dogs and the Curly Shake, a shake with a sundae on top (seriously, why isn't this at every DQ?). Troy DeLeon, who bought the store in 1995 but took on the permissive franchise contract from 1949, says there "aren't enough zeroes" on a new contract that would force him to dump the Local Menu. Dean Peters, spokesweasel for International Dairy Queen, Inc. (a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway) refused to comment on whether the company would rather such rogue operations didn't exist.

posted by Etrigan (69 comments total)

In my neck of the woods, we've got the last remaining DQ with an original 50's design.
posted by davebush at 11:08 AM on July 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

...the Chipper Sandwich, which is vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two chocolate chip cookies and dipped in chocolate.

!!! Road trip!
posted by something something at 11:10 AM on July 27, 2015 [9 favorites]

However, Peters said the company cannot promote the store "as a brand and a system," and added that most DQ lovers are looking for uniformity and the indoor dining experience provided by the company's newer DQ Grill and Chill restaurants.

*cough*bullshit*/cough*
posted by ursus_comiter at 11:10 AM on July 27, 2015 [24 favorites]

Dairy Queen in particular seems to be less regimented that other fast food chains. In Texas and the surrounding states, DQs all seem to be identical. On the East coast, they are more an ice cream place than a burger joint. Also, the burgers are named differently and seem to be much lighter on the mustard.
posted by SkinnerSan at 11:11 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Nitpick: Moorhead is in Minnesota, across the Red River from Fargo, ND.

That said, it's always neat to find a throw-back like this. Whenever I'm on a road trip, I always love it when I stumble across locally-owned, locally-colored institutions. The problem is that they're hard to find relative to the chain restaurants that advertise on the "Services This Exit" signs along the freeways. Someone needs to start the equivalent of Roadside America for travel-friendly eateries.
posted by Johnny Assay at 11:12 AM on July 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

Moorhead knows no queen but the Queen of the Dairy, whose name is DELEON
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:14 AM on July 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Do they have spaghetti and blankets?
posted by NoMich at 11:14 AM on July 27, 2015 [11 favorites]

Obligatory Mitch Hedburg quote:

Every McDonald's commercial ends the same way, right? "Prices and participation may vary." I wanna open a McDonald's and not participate in anything. I wanna be a stubborn McDonald's owner. Cheeseburgers? Nope. We got spaghetti! And blankets!
posted by craven_morhead at 11:18 AM on July 27, 2015 [32 favorites]

One of the drive-in theater intermission reel collections we sometimes watch for MST3K Club contains an old (like, pre-Dennis-the-Menace) animated Dairy Queen ad. Here it is by itself.
posted by JHarris at 11:19 AM on July 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

I vaguely remember hearing that some southern McDonald's sold hush puppies.
posted by jonmc at 11:20 AM on July 27, 2015

NoMich beat me, dammit.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:20 AM on July 27, 2015

That massive roofline/upper storey perched on top of the spindly framed glass ground floor looks like a comedy film visual gag about to happen. You know, the parade float goes out of control and plows through it and top part just collapses onto it or something.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:22 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I do definitely remember, around 1990, a McDonalds in Flushing selling a banana shake. Never saw it again or elsewhere.
posted by jonmc at 11:23 AM on July 27, 2015

Dammit, now I want ice cream.
posted by Kitteh at 11:25 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

In my neck of the woods, we've got the last remaining DQ with an original 50's design.

Holy crap, I used to go there in highschool. Not like super frequently, but a few times a year for sure.

jonmc, after reading that I'm flummoxed as to why McDs didn't do a banananananana shake as a tie-in with all the Minions merchandising.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:26 AM on July 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

SkinnerSan: “On the East coast, they are more an ice cream place than a burger joint.”

Yeah, I can't imagine how desperate I'd have to be to go to a DQ for anything besides a dipped cone or Peanut-Buster Parfait around here. The grill always seems… sub-optimal …in the cleanliness department.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:27 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

The Moorhead DQ was recently featured on Serious Eats as well.
posted by Ian A.T. at 11:27 AM on July 27, 2015

Yes, as a Fargoan, I must insist a mod change the link to say Moorhead, Minnesota...we don't want to be mistaken for those uncouth east-bank'ers. :)

One think I think all these articles miss is that the Moorhead Dairy Queen is the birthplace of the Dilly Bar. Dairy Queen owes more to that ice cream barn than vice-versa.

(I must admit, thought, I rarely go to that one -- we used to go to the one on University, dubbed by one of the kids as the "best barn in the world", but, sadly, it was torn down last year and replaced with a boring modern Braizer-style shop).
posted by AzraelBrown at 11:29 AM on July 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

Seriously how the fuck do you take something like the Chipper sandwich off the menu? That feels like some new exec's random "lookit me I'm changin' things" move that never got the quiet reversal it was supposed to.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 11:37 AM on July 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

I apologize wholeheartedly for the misstating.
posted by Etrigan at 11:39 AM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Customers at the DeLeons' restaurant are welcome, if not encouraged, to order treats just the way they like them. For example, Moorhead Mayor Del Rae Williams said her son likes the Crunch Blizzard, but substituted with chocolate ice cream.

Can't you do that anywhere? Kit-Kat Blizzard with chocolate ice cream forever!
posted by cardboard at 11:40 AM on July 27, 2015

We used to have an originalish Dairy Queen in Troy, OH when I was growing up. It was located right along the bike trail that led to the city park and baseball fields so it was ideally located. Unfortunately the owner was also an official of some sort for federal food assistance and used that position to get all sorts of supplies for his Dairy Queen. After being caught someone else bought the business but the franchise was effectively terminated and it became the Dairy Barn. It closed not long after - I blame kids not going outside enough nowadays (while still being on my lawn) but it might have had to do with trademark stuff.
posted by charred husk at 11:41 AM on July 27, 2015

This kind of thing begs for a directory of franchises that will mess with their corporate overlords' menus.

I mean what if the Jack in the Box down the road from me will put that garlic butter sauce from that one new burger on my grilled chicken sandwich and no one knows it. WHAT IF.

(What if is that I'd eat nothing else because I am garbage)
posted by FritoKAL at 11:45 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm in love with the typography of the "Moorhead" sign. Particularly the way it fits the angle of the roof.
posted by Nelson at 11:49 AM on July 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

When I went back to school in the early 90s in Fargo, the downtown Moorhead DQ was a godsend for poor students. My wife and I used to order BBQ sandwiches for a buck each (now $2.25) and bring a couple slices of cheese from home (like I said, poor college students). We could even afford to buy one for the dog. Damn I miss that dog. Anyway, bravo to the Moorhead DQ. Long may your freak flag fly.
posted by Ber at 11:54 AM on July 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

In my neck of the woods, we've got the last remaining DQ with an original 50's design.

I was ready to say NO but maybe yes, because the one near my office is from '47. There are a few others around the Twin Cities that are from the '50s and '60s and they're the most fun ones.

Though it had stopped being a DQ several years ago the one from my childhood neighborhood was torn down this summer and it was sad.

I have a lot of family who went to Concordia College in Moorhead (Go Cobbers) and that place really is as amazing as you'd like to imagine it is. If they ever get forced out of their contract I hope they keep it going as a QD like the A&W that flipped its W over to become A&M.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 11:55 AM on July 27, 2015

In 1997 I worked at a Dairy Queen in Appleton, WI that was a bit like this one. We made our own Dilly Bars and ice cream cakes every morning, and closed in the winter, and we always had lines out the door and down Richmond Street.

We weren't a Brazier at all, so served no hot food, and frequently puzzled customers from out of town who were used to such things and didn't know why we were apologetically directing them to the Neenah DQ if they wanted a steak fingers basket.
posted by angeline at 11:57 AM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

I guess that I vaguely knew that DQ did or used to sell food other than ice cream but it would never occur to me to order anything but an ice cream cone there.
posted by octothorpe at 11:58 AM on July 27, 2015

I guess that I vaguely knew that DQ did or used to sell food other than ice cream

Dairy cows don't live forever, y'know.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:01 PM on July 27, 2015 [8 favorites]

but steak doesn't have fingers
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:02 PM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Minnesotafied the post, carry on.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:02 PM on July 27, 2015 [8 favorites]

No, "carrion". That's what I'm talkin' about.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:03 PM on July 27, 2015

but steak doesn't have fingers

jesus FUCK what have I been eating
posted by delfin at 12:10 PM on July 27, 2015 [13 favorites]

I guess that I vaguely knew that DQ did or used to sell food other than ice cream
They sell ice cream?

My friend David told me how his dad, a chemist, ruined many of his childhood delights, explained the chemistry behind Dairy Queen ice cream, particularly how it caused it to not so much melt as uncongeal. Then again, they went to a baseball game once and went to the men's room and his dad struck up a conversation with man at the urinal next to him starting with, "so you're a chemist, huh?" David asked his dad how he knew the stranger was a chemist and his dad said, "only a chemist washes his hands before he goes to the bathroom."
posted by plinth at 12:14 PM on July 27, 2015 [23 favorites]

I sometimes think of myself as a rogue dairy queen.
posted by trip and a half at 12:26 PM on July 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

excuse me I'm joining XQUZYPHR for lunch

Oh my god I love that the menu on their website is a photograph of the actual menu. That is amazing.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:27 PM on July 27, 2015

Oh my god I love that the menu on their website is a photograph of the actual menu.

Dammit, now I want a Cheerwine and I'm hours north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
posted by Etrigan at 12:32 PM on July 27, 2015

McDonalds in Hawaii sell saimin.

Also, when I was young, every year my grandfather would buy about three hundred dilly bars for his hundred-and-fifty-odd employees. Every year the excess would come home to live in our freezer. It was pretty much the best thing ever for a kid. And probably for an adult. I'm stopping the next time i see a dairy queen.
posted by stet at 12:36 PM on July 27, 2015

My husband sent me the Serious Eats article last week and was like, "road trip?"

This is the best thing ever. Just knowing it exists makes me ridiculously happy.
posted by gerstle at 12:59 PM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm not a huge fan of DQ's burgers, but that chicken strip basket (all 1000+ calories of it) is a great thing. Also, their fries, when fresh, are among my favorite fast food fries.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:02 PM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

cortex: [Minnesotafied the post, carry on.]

Should be part of the Submit Form, or at least a Greasemonkey script.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:11 PM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Cookout forever! I don't even care that they have religious quotes on the wrappers.
posted by winna at 1:55 PM on July 27, 2015

The DQ in my childhood hometown sold pork tenderloin sandwiches. The ones the size of a dinner plate. Between that and a Blue Raspberry Mister Misty, you were all set.

(Though they never had caramel topping, only butterscotch. Which was fine by me.)
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 1:59 PM on July 27, 2015

Big chains suppress individual innovation at their own risk; after all the iconic Big Mac started at a single location in Pittsburgh.
posted by TedW at 2:12 PM on July 27, 2015

When I was a kid, the big "we're going to have a treat" was to go to the Dairy Queen off of Pottery Rd. in Toronto and the best part was sitting outside on the big ugly plastic benches and looking over the Don Valley. Like, yes, I suppose there was indoor seating, but pfft on that.

I have no memory of ever eating hot food from a DQ but it does stick in my mind as "probably OK"
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 2:12 PM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

You were totally doing it wrong, TUSOMC. The best way to go to that DQ was to be riding bikes with your friend, hurling pell-mell down Pottery road and then mucking about in the woods all day around Todmorden. Then slowly forcing your way back up Pottery road to the red and white sign gleaming like a beacon of hope and scarfing down a Blizzard with Reese's Pieces paid for with hoarded pocket money and knowing your mother would give you an earful about spoiling your dinner.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:21 PM on July 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

Every McDonald's commercial ends the same way, right? "Prices and participation may vary." I wanna open a McDonald's and not participate in anything. I wanna be a stubborn McDonald's owner. Cheeseburgers? Nope. We got spaghetti! And blankets!

Most irritatingly, i've seen this be used to basically eliminate the dollar menu and many cheaper options in poorer or centrally located stores because, essentially, whoever owned that franchise got tired of service too many homeless people and poor people.

It always pisses me off when i stroll in to a downtown or poor neighborhood/next to the highway $CHAINFASTFOOD place somewhere i haven't been before when i'm in a hurry and the entire cheap half of the menu is gutted. Gotta keep out the wrong crowd i guess! Fuck.

This is why I've fallen in love with Cookout. It's basically a fast food restaurant under the premise of "if a fast food restaurant just offered everything on the menu because eff it, why not."

Ugh, this brought back horrible memories of high school. I worked at a place like this call Herfy's(which has been mentioned, by others, on the blue before). It was a burger/teriyaki/fish and chips/cheesesteak/hotdog/fried chicken/??? shop. And the weird thing was most of the food was good. The teriyaki wasn't the best, but it was above average. The burgers were good, the cheesesteaks were excellent, i could go on.

Oh, and we had like 40 flavors of shakes. Including ones with fresh fruit, cookie pieces, real hot fudge, etc.

Stocking the kitchen and doing prep or even just making stuff if you got a crush of orders from all over the menu was a freaking nightmare though. The place ALWAYS felt understaffed, even when there were only like two customers in it.

I have yet to have a better chicken cheesesteak anywhere though, and i still miss their garlic fry sauce which i haven't seen any place even remotely hold a candle to(imagine home made ranch, but thick, and combined with good zesty garlic sauce. UNF)

I would go there right now if it still existed.
posted by emptythought at 2:46 PM on July 27, 2015

Forget the menu. Just give me a dozen slices of their drenched in butter Texas Toast, and I'll drive to the nearest hospital and eat it in their parking lot.
posted by Beholder at 2:53 PM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

> "This is why I've fallen in love with Cookout"

holy hell that looks frighteningly similar to the menu for the little greasy spoon "cafe" place that's only open weird hours at the Eldorado Springs pool. I mean you can get ANY FUCKING THING there you want (assuming they're open) up to and including Skittles and cotton candy. And then eat it right next to the pool like the heathen you are without even getting side-eye from the lifeguards... because 99% of the time the pool is too fucking cold to stay in for long anyhow.

Also they have a hilariously jankety and awesome super-tall 1950s slide complete with a slippery steel ladder, sharp edges and a shiny metal surface that's approximately the temperature of the sun's photosphere on hot days along with real life diving boards and a honest to god 12' diving well that you could lose Jimmy Hoffa in, because fuck it why not, Eldo Springs is one of those weird little independent Western quasi mining enclaves besides which Colorado is an at-risk state anyhows.
posted by lonefrontranger at 2:57 PM on July 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

I've heard the KFC in Shiprock, New Mexico serves navajo tacos and mutton stew.
posted by pravit at 3:28 PM on July 27, 2015

I have had DQ's chicken strip basket several times. The one time it came out good, it was really, really good. And every other time it's been disgusting. Sigh. My homedown DQ is one of those ones under an earlier contract, but so far as I know the only way they've ever exercised it is by refusing to serve any hot food more complicated than a hotdog. As it was the only fast food place within walking distance until the Taco Bell opened, when I was a kid, I went there a fair amount to spend my allowance just out of lack of choices. I can't remember the last time, anymore, but their pumpkin pie blizzard is pretty okay. Not great, but pretty okay.
posted by Sequence at 3:41 PM on July 27, 2015

pravit, I've seen "Green Chili_X" at a few of the franchise pizza / sub / burger chains here in CO, so I honestly wouldn't be surprised. I also remember seeing goat burritos somewhere in NM that I don't think was exactly local but could have been small-chain-franchise enough to have been quasi-local/regional. Maybe it was Qdoba or Chipotle but it could have been a much more local franchise.
posted by lonefrontranger at 4:15 PM on July 27, 2015

I also remember seeing goat burritos

where is this joyous paradise and why would you ever leave it
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:23 PM on July 27, 2015

Most of the DQs near me serve only ice cream and close in the winter. The ones further Downstate serve food.

One thing I think all these articles miss is that the Moorhead Dairy Queen is the birthplace of the Dilly Bar.
This brings back childhood memories of visiting my grandparents and stopping for Dilly Bars on the way back to their house from their store.
posted by SisterHavana at 4:32 PM on July 27, 2015

When I was in high school, there were only three restaurants in town: Dairy Queen, Pizza Inn, and a truck stop diner that closed at 2:00 p.m. Before home Friday night football games, Dairy Queen and Pizza Inn were packed with kids from the band, the drill team, the football training "staff," the cheerleading squad. Those two places were kind of the only two places where all the kids from all the different groups mingled, as socially stratified as small-town Southern high schools are. (I distinctly remember a cheerleader from my grade -- whom I never talked to, by virtue of the fact that I was in honors classes and she was in mid-level classes and we therefore never crossed paths, not out of malice, but because of how the adults grouped us -- coming up to me at one day while I was at my locker and saying "I seen you at Dairy Queen on Friday!" And it was this weird validating moment because yes, she had. She seen me!)

Then, my senior year, a freaking Sonic had the nerve to come to town -- and it was directly across the street from Dairy Queen, which had been there for 25 years or more. The gall! The competitive, capitalistic gall!!

My memory may be apocraphy-zing this whole thing, but I swear that from that point on, with a third choice, one of them being new-fangled, where you spent the Friday afternoon before a home football game was an automatic indicator of your clique and social status. Dairy Queen, sadly, signified the bottom rung. Steak fingers and country gravy were ultimately for the plebes, I guess.
posted by mudpuppie at 5:01 PM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

lonefrontranger: “pravit, I've seen "Green Chili_X" at a few of the franchise pizza / sub / burger chains here in CO, so I honestly wouldn't be surprised.”

It's been a long time since I've been there, but I know you could get green chile on pretty much anything or in little plastic cups at the McDonald's at Montgomery and Tramway and the locations along Wyoming Boulevard in Albuquerque.
posted by ob1quixote at 5:05 PM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

fffm because I'm pretty sure it was either in Grants or the other little enclave at the base of the Zunis where my husband grew up in grand poverty and isolation and you literally could not pay either of us to spend more than a passing day trip there as adults with choice in the matter.

BUT if you're ever in the area, I urge, nay I implore you to find the time to make the trip to Pie Town, and be sure to do it during business hours (also somewhat sketchy) of the Pie-O-Neer.
posted by lonefrontranger at 5:13 PM on July 27, 2015

ob1quixote as of March of this year AFAIK you still can get green chile in little plastic cups in practically any chain place (at least in the northeastern heights?) in ABQ. It's pretty much always 505 from the big industrial glass jars, mind, but it's still technically local.
posted by lonefrontranger at 5:16 PM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

I urge, nay I implore you to find the time to make the trip to Pie Town

fat man needs no urging to visit Pie Town

oh my god peach and chile? that sounds like so much nom
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:28 PM on July 27, 2015

davebush and fffm, yours is not the only classic DQ—I still hold a soft spot for the one just north of Cincinnati, by where I grew up. It looks to still be very much alive and kicking.

I don’t think they have anything special on the menu, but there’s really nothing like sitting outside on a hot summer evening enjoying a Blizzard. I bet they’d even do one with chocolate ice cream if I asked nicely.
posted by reluctant early bird at 5:42 PM on July 27, 2015

> In my neck of the woods, we've got the last remaining DQ with an original 50's design.

One of the last. There's an identical building near Erie, PA that I drove past three days ago. I don't know whether it's still in business (I was passing through before business hours) but Dairy Queen still lists it. If I'd known this was a point of contention I would have stopped to take photos.
posted by ardgedee at 5:54 PM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Woop. They have a Facebook page and photos. So the building is similar rather than identical, but the sign is the same.
posted by ardgedee at 5:57 PM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I bet they’d even do one with chocolate ice cream if I asked nicely

wait wait wait wait hold the phone one goddamn minute is this really NOT a thing elsewhere? because we have a DQ close to my house that lives in a GENERIC STRIP MALL fercrissakes and they will happily make whatever weird format of Blizzard I request. I know this because I request Snickers Blizzards with coffee ice cream fairly regularly and they are only too happy to make them.

or is this just a Boulder thing? please tell me it's not just a Boulder thing...
posted by lonefrontranger at 6:06 PM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

wait wait wait wait hold the phone one goddamn minute is this really NOT a thing elsewhere?

look maybe I just never though to ask okay; I’ve just had chocolate ice cream blizzards on the mind since that article
posted by reluctant early bird at 6:11 PM on July 27, 2015

I have successfully gotten a McDonalds to make me an Oreo McFlurry with chocolate soft serve.

Not the same as a Blizzard though goddammit.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:12 PM on July 27, 2015

I recently moved to Georgia and the Dairy Queens here don't have steak fingers and everyone I talk to has no idea what I'm talking about. I've been to 2 in this state and neither have them. That's how you know there's no place like home I guess.

Also, if you want your local chain fast food chain to make something weird or off menu, just ask! I worked at McDonald's in high school and we usually did our best to try to make the weird orders. More than a few times I put fries on someone's burger for them.
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:51 PM on July 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Wait what? I' et never even seen chocolate soft-serve at a DQ (grew up in Montreal). Now you tell me I could have had chocolate or even coffee Blizzards all along? I feel cheated.
posted by third word on a random page at 4:33 AM on July 29, 2015

I went as a date to a wedding (in Mankato, MN) where both the bride and the groom had worked at DQ. Instead of cake, they had heart-shaped dilly bars in waaay more flavors than my local DQ ever had. (Toasted coconut! mmm. MMM.) I believe I made my boyfriend take me to that DQ a few times, I think.

My home-suburb DQ (which had no grill or indoor seating and closed in winter) just changed their signage and got rid of the Dennis the Menace stuff that had previously decorated it. :(
posted by MsDaniB at 4:54 PM on July 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

Turtle blizzard...buuuuut...a blueberry-chocolate chip-cheesecake milkshake from Cookout wins every time. Also my Cook-Out tray with either a spicy chicken sandwich or a Cook-Out style burger with bacon wrap or corndog and mustard and fries with Cook-Out seasoning. Huge tea, maybe a cocola if you're feeling it, and it's Cook-Out, so no cheating with diet. Then you sit in your truck in the parking lot with the windows down listening to the radio and wondering if the humidity is ever going to let up and wouldn't it be nice if there wasn't so much cloud cover and we could see the stars?
posted by sara is disenchanted at 8:01 PM on July 29, 2015