Fine Dining - Dairy Queen’s Rise to Power – The Blizzard Effect

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Dairy Queen is more than just ice cream—it was one of the first fast-food chains to take over America. In this episode, we dive into how a self-proclaimed chemist helped perfect soft serve, why DQ dominated the 1950s, and the moment that changed everything: the invention of the Blizzard. Joining me is writer & director Tyler Eaton of the new horror-comedy film Mysterious Ways, as we explore Dairy Queen’s rise, its questionable hot food menu, and whether it still lives up to its legendary status today. 🎙 IN THIS EPISODE: 🍦 How Dairy Queen exploded to 1,400+ locations in just 10 years ❄️ The Blizzard: Can Dairy Queen even take credit for it? 🏁 Did Dairy Queen help spark the fast-food boom in America? 🤔 How did a 14-year-old inspire the most famous upside-down dessert? 🍔 Hear all of DQ's slogans throughout the years! 🎤 Gwen Stefani worked at Dairy Queen?! 📢 JOIN THE COMMUNITY & SUPPORT THE SHOW: 🔥 Patreon (Exclusive bonus content!): https://www.patreon.com/c/finediningpodcast 💬 Discord (Fast food talk & horror stories!): https://discord.gg/6a2YqrtWV4 🎥 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FineDiningPodcast 🔗 All links: www.linktree.com/finediningpodcast Patreon Producers: Sue Ornelas & Joyce Van 👉 NEXT WEEK: We visit Dairy Queen Grill & Chill – Can they actually pull off burgers, or should they just stick to ice cream? 🍔🍦

Dairy Queen! It's a soft-serve juggernaut whose approach to sweet treats turned the frozen dessert industry upside down. DQ has been serving up cones of happiness for 87 years. With a recipe perfected by a self-proclaimed chemist, the most alarming kind, Dairy Queen hung its hat on its improved formula for creating a creamier, softer texture. While not the innovator of soft-serve ice cream, a distinction held by Tom Carvel, Dairy Queen arrived on the scene quickly afterward and, within just 10 years, exploded to almost

1,400 locations. That's just between how many chilis and applebees are currently operating in the U.S. But they didn't stop there. In fact, they were only beginning, as Dairy Queen became a symbol of American prosperity throughout the 50s and 60s. Dipped cones and soft serve were so the rage that even today, there are full-fledged competitions devoting to how quickly one can consume them, brain freeze be damned. And what's even colder than a freeze?

A blizzard. And in 1985, that's what Dairy Queen introduced to again take the fast food game by Winter Storm. This week on the show, I'll fill your cones with my soft served knowledge so that you too can become an expert on all things Dairy Queen. Then we'll turn our attention to Yelp to see what the word on the street is about the DQ we went to. Stay tuned, this is the Fine Dining Podcast. It'll be the perfect five, fine dining. Better than you thought, worse than you hoped. Fine dining.

We don't treat media per ad to joke. Breaking every single place we've been. Looking for the perfect five out of ten. Wait, 1400 locations within 10 years? Within 10 years. That's incredible. There's like 1500 Applebee's and like 1250 Chili's in the country right now. So by like 1950, DQ was already at that status.

Just dominating. People love soft serve. They really do. So much. Probably because they didn't have air conditioning back then. And they were like, this is the only way to cool myself down. That's real. Hello and welcome to the Fine Dining Podcast, the search for the most mediocre restaurant

in America. I am your host, Michael Ornelas, and this is the show where I dive deep into the history of our favorite chain restaurants before reviewing them. This week's episode is all about Dairy Queen and joining me today is a fellow Texan, a friend from college, a writer and director whose new horror comedy film, Mysterious Ways, will be available on any day now on YouTube, Amazon,

Google Play, Apple TV Plus, and Tubi. He's also a man with the perfect last name to be a guest on this show. It's Tyler Eaton. Hey, thank you so much for having me, Michael. Of course, thanks for doing this. Absolutely. This is a pleasure already. Tyler, you joined me for Dairy Queen. I did.

Do you have a lot of personal history with Dairy Queen? Is this a place that you remember much growing up or you would just see it and it's whatever? I mean, my family was like, Water Burger, Sonic, like these were the Chick-fil-A, but Dairy Queen was like a road trip place we would go. We loved the blizzards. Was it road trip specifically

because there wasn't one near you? Yeah, they weren't really in town. They were kind of all on the outskirts. I grew up in Houston, Texas, Sugarland specifically. And so yeah, Dairy Queen wasn't just like around the block. So that's kind of why we were obsessed with Wendy's Water Burger Chick-fil-A because they were in the neighborhood.

Yeah. You know? Okay. Yeah, did you have a Dairy Queen like right down the street? Well, so before I moved to Texas, I kind of moved around a little bit, but I was born in the Chicagoland area, kind of out in the suburbs,

which you'll find out shortly, is where Dairy Queen emerged from. And I remember, I don't remember if it was church or something, but there was like a little downtown area that my grandpa would always walk me down to the Dairy Queen. It was literally in this green wooden shack that had the Dairy Queen name on it, but none of the corporate clean branding. It was like a homemade sign, and I would get dip chocolate cones, and then later I would start getting the banana split,

which we'll talk about next week, but for nostalgia, I had to get one. So my memory of an association of Dairy Queen is solely of my mom's dad. So it's a nice memory. That's beautiful. Yeah. Okay, so, yeah, you got back in touch with your grandpa

on our road trip. You didn't mention that at all. I got back in touch with him? I mean, I don't know if he's with us still. Like I needed a medium. I feel, that's what I felt the spirit going within me and reaching out and- Grandpa?

I was looking across the table and you're like, yellow. That is how my grandfather would answer the phone. Yellow. Yellow. My favorite color is yellow. I'm happy to have been that conduit for you. Well, that is our history with Dairy Queen. Do you want to hear the history of Dairy Queen? I do.

All right. We are going to jump into this week's Eat Deets. Eat Deets. Eatery Details. Dairy Queen's founder, John Fremont McCullough, was a self-proclaimed chemist who had experience as a soft drink manufacturer. He was passionate about experimenting with food formulas and in 1938 developed a new formula for soft serve ice cream with his son Alex that utilized air to give a smoother,

creamier texture. A chemist turned soft serve ice cream guy. It does sound like it's like a food chemist though, like literally, he worked with sodas. So it's like, oh, I know like how to deal with the balance of like sugar levels versus this or versus that and different flavors. He probably wanted to sound a little more prestigious too.

He's like, I'm a soda chemist. I saw the word chemist and then saw that he had no formal degree in chemistry. I was like, did he just run a meth lab? Like, is that what this was? Is he making soft serve with Sudafed? I think all these early soda guys were just like kids with suicides, you know, just combining things

and seeing what tasted good. And then like snorting cocaine to stay awake and then they put some in it and it's like Coca-Cola! soda guys were just like, like kids with suicides, you know, just combining things and seeing what tasted good. And then like snorting cocaine to stay awake and then they put some in it. And it's like Coca-Cola. Yeah. And now it's a trillion dollar business with no cocaine. I'm like, what are we paying for? What's the, why's it cost so much? Yeah.

Cherry's not a substitute for Coke. Cherry is the best Coke in my opinion. I stopped drinking soda years ago and I haven't been on the cherry coke train in a long long time. I started to have soda more in my diet than I would have liked last year. So for this year, my New Year's resolution is I'm going the whole year without anything but water. Other than I went to Taco Bell and I was like, I have to try Baja Blast. How early in the year did you do that? What do you mean? Like when did

you get the Baja Blast? Or you're you're going to do that? Well no I've already done it. You've already done it? Yeah yeah yeah. So the rest of the year is all all water and even then I didn't even refill the Baja Blast. I was just like one. Okay. Yeah okay. Respectable. This soft serve isn't technically ice cream as it contains only 5% butterfat instead of the required 10%. Wait, you have to have 10% butterfat to be considered ice cream? Because there's like all these different, you know, there's what makes something frozen yogurt versus what makes something ice cream versus what makes something custard. Got it. What makes something soft serve.

So there's just all these like subtle differences. They're all in the same family, but to technically gain certain statuses, you have to meet certain thresholds. I wonder how early the turning the cup thing became a thing. Oh, we'll get into it. Okay, great. We will get into it.

McCullough partnered with Sherwood Sherb Noble to sell his product. Sherb had an ice cream shop in Kankakee, Illinois, and after just two hours, they'd sold over 1,600 servings of their soft serve. They knew they were onto something special, and the name Dairy Queen came shortly after, as John called his creation a Queen Among Dairy Products.

So it was two guys? Well, it was John and his son. John and his son. And then he brought it to an ice cream shop owner named Sherb. Perfect, I mean, it sounds like an ice cream. It's gotta be short for Sherbet. Sherbet.

Sherbet. Sherbet. Technically. Interesting. They could have been dairy king, but I guess they were ahead of their times and were like, no, let's be, let's be queen. They were feminists. It sounds like it.

It's the queen of dairy products, not the king. Guys. That belongs to milk. We have a queen in England. Let's keep it. Yeah, they were still, they were redcoats. Yeah. I think so.

In 1940, they opened the first dairy queen store in Joliet, Illinois with Sherb as the manager. That store remains a city landmark. Love his names. Joliet and Kankakee? Don't put those on the same level. Kankakee and Joliet. Joliet's like a name. But I like them both.

Kankakee is like a sound a bird makes. Kankakee! Kankakee! That a sound a bird makes. Kankakee, kankakee, kankakee. That's probably how they named it. It's honestly probably a Native American tribe, and now I feel bad making fun of the name. We're the worst at it. But if not, then we're okay. Then we crushed that joke.

Then we're so funny. Within 10 years, there were over 1,400 Dairy Queen locations nationally. Today, there are almost 6,000 locations across 30 countries with over 4,300 of them domestic. Holy cow. They continue to crush. Because 10 years, it was only 10 years where they grew to that.

And that was like, that took them into the post-World War II boom. Well, it's hard to keep that rate, that explosive rate of expansion. Because like if we- I don't know, they had just made the atomic bomb. That's what inspired them. Yeah, they put the atom to grow Dairy Queen locations. It was started by a chemist. Oppenheimer loved soft serve.

We know this about him. Nolan's next movie. The follow-up to Oppenheimer where it's just like all the stuff you didn't see. He just keeps rushing to Dairy Queen. And now I am become soft serve. And drinking, drinking Coke that has cocaine in it. The post-World War II boom saw Dairy Queen become synonymous with suburban Americana, with restaurants covered in neon signs and bright colors. It established its name as a player in the competitive fast food industry at the time and in 1957 began selling hot food under the Brazier

brand. Franchisee Jim Cruickshank set out to develop a standardized cooking method for DQ. And after witnessing flames coming out of a charcoal grill at a restaurant in New York, also known as a Brazier, he was inspired to bring the process to Dairy Queen. And the original brazier menu included hamburgers, fries, and barbecue beef. Interesting. So they expanded Beyonda's desserts

into regular Americana fast food. So that would have been 20 years after the invention of the formula, 17 years after the opening of the first restaurant. So I think fast food was starting to take off in such a way that they were like, oh, we, we can get our name in the market by, with more than just ice cream. Right.

We already have all the buildings. Yeah. Let's just expand the kitchens and get the assembly line going. Yeah. So they were kind of, you know, they were taking notes from like the other, the competitors, probably like the McDonald's, you know, the burger, the other royalty, the burger. Maybe that's why it was just Burger King.

I don't think Burger King was around yet in 1937. Okay. It may have been, but it would have been close. I love these names and how they just have to be so boastful. They're just like, yeah, attaching themselves to a monarchy, a food. That was kind of the marketing of the time where it was just like, you know, this is the mother of all inventions.

These are, you know, this is the thing you gotta have. Right. You know, door to door salesmen who have this kind of voice and they'll be like, oh man, you'll never pass on another automobile like this. You know, stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta shoot for the top shelf.

That's the vibe. Yeah, yeah, okay. Now, in the same way that other restaurants were influential to Dairy Queen, maybe venturing into hot food, Dairy Queen was influential, inspiring many fast food chains to incorporate soft serve and ice cream into their offerings.

But they broke away from the pack with the advent of the Blizzard. Yeah, the Blizzard is the main thing I remember growing up with. Yeah, because it's like everyone's doing what you do now. Like McDonald's has a soft serve mission until it's broken, but you know, they have it. Dairy Queen's like, all right, well now we're the same

as everyone, what can differentiate us. So they turned a corner with the Blizzard. For those unfamiliar, a Blizzard is characterized as a soft serve dessert made with blended ingredients, emulsifiers, and air. Blizzards are thick and have a high viscosity and come in many flavors with mixed in ingredients. The most popular flavors are Oreo,

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, Turtle Pecan Cluster, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and Choco Brownie Extreme. Oh my God. This is the, yeah, this is my childhood memories is like we could go to Sonic, no, let's go to Dairy Queen because we need blizzards. You gotta get the blizzard.

Yeah, and Oreo and the peanut butter one specifically was like what rocked my world. So it worked. Yes, it absolutely did. The thing where it was like, oh man, we gotta draw business from these other options. It worked on a young Eaton family. The Eatons were Eaton.

The Eatons were Eaton good. That's right. Yeah. While it didn't get its national spotlight until the official launch in 1985, the blizzard goes as far back as 1962 when Samuel Temperado, a Dairy Queen franchisee, invented the treat after seeing a competitor

selling frozen custard. This competitor may or may not have been Ted Drews Jr. of St. Louis, Missouri, who in 1959 was asked by a 14-year-old boy to make his chocolate malt thicker and thicker. Drew's eventually turned the cup upside down and said, is this thick enough for you?

That's the voice I imagine he had. Temperado differentiated his creation by adding candy to his concrete and calling it a blizzard. So it's all thanks to this greedy ass 14-year-old boy just being like, not thick enough like not thick enough not thick enough I want gravity to be defied by my words. So this wasn't a Dairy Queen thing This is just a guy with a frozen custard shop in st. Louis He's not a part of his not as far as I could find

So in that biopic movie they get midway through the movie and then like they got a cut away to like new character intro And then that's oh, yeah that's how I picture this. And like, like some song that was big at the time and like, you know, it starts with him putting on his boots and it's all flashy and then it cuts back and you just see this frozen custard magnet walking down the street. Yeah. And then it's like, here's the story of Ted Drew's Jr or whatever his name was. I got a chance to watch mysterious ways last night.

And of all the horror movies I've seen, it had the most dancing. Can I use that in one of the trailers? Put that like on the poster, like a review quote. Michael Ornelas said, there was dancing. Do you not know how to pronounce my last name properly? Ornelas? We've been friends for so long. I've known you for like 12 years. Not, all right, here's the thing. There was dancing. Do you not know how to pronounce my last name properly? Ornelas? We've been friends for so...

I've known you for like 12... Not... All right, here's the thing. I say Ornelas, not Or-nay-las. But it is a Mexican last name, and technically it should be Or-nay-las. So that is... So we're both wrong. We're both wrong, and you are closer to butchering the honest way of doing it, while I've just abandoned the honest way of doing it.

Sounds like I'm closer to right. So I don't feel any shame. Go ahead, tell people about Mysterious Ways real quick. So Mysterious Ways is a horror comedy set in the evangelical church world that I grew up in as a pastor's kid in Texas. It's about two sibling youth pastors who accidentally possess their pastor's daughter on Halloween night and they have to, you know, go on a misadventure overnight to stop the rampage and stop the possession from spreading to 666 people or else the

Antichrist will emerge and end the world. You know, low stakes for an indie comedy movie. Yeah, and like Michael said, it'll be out any day now, which I... Well, this episode is March 19th. Yes. It may or may not be available on the platforms. Already. On the apps? On the apps, yeah, yeah. Tube and all that. Swipe right onto...

Yeah, we're going gonna put it on Tinder, see how it does, just to see if it's sexy, and then we'll go from there. Awesome. Yeah. Now what I was trying to follow and piecing this all together, because the blizzard came out publicly

or nationally in 1985, but this was in 1962 inspired by that 14 year old incident that happened only three years prior in 1959. So it's like a Dairy Queen franchisee, I'm not gonna say stole because you know, you have inspiration all over the place and especially with food,

like people are gonna see something and be like, oh, I think I can make that or have a take on it. And this is 25 years later. Or this is 23 years before it, the, it officially launches is when the first Aery Queen guys like, Oh, I'm going to start selling this in my store specifically. Got it. But three years prior, this thing happens with the upside down thing. So they take that element from it, which kind of went down as, as legend almost,

but they took it from a frozen custard place. And what I found peculiar about it, with the timing, the official 1985 launch of the DQ Blizzard was only one year removed from the 1984 founding of Culver's, which is a frozen custard chain out of Wisconsin known for selling concrete mixers, which are remarkably similar to the Blizzard only using frozen custard instead of soft serve. So it's one of those things where one Dairy Queen location is using the Blizzards and then a new chain launches basically the Blizzard, like the Culver's that they're called Concrete's at Culver's, but with the mix ins and stuff.

And then a year later, Dairy Queen's like, Oh, nah, not on my watch. And then they officially introduced the Blizzard and they already have. So much headway, you know, by having thousands of restaurants out there as opposed to Culver's, which is just in Wisconsin. So I wonder, did Culver's decide to do this with Custard because of Dairy Queen and then Dairy Queen responded? Or did they do it independent of Dairy Queen and Dairy Queen was like, oh, we got to get on this. If they were the inventors of Blizzard, they would have invented the Blizzard. Yes, yes. I'm just saying in terms of who brought it to the national.

Although I guess I don't think I don't think Culver's was national by 1985, but I'm sure. I'm making the Facebook comparison. It's like, yeah, I'm sure DQ had ears on the ground to be like, oh, man, you see this competition over here, they're developing a thing that's kind of like this other thing that your one location has. We should bring it national before they do. That's literally what every tech company does now. Like the big ones, they see what the small people are doing.

It's getting popular and they're like, we're going to do it, but bigger and like smoosh you or buy you. So, yeah. So I do wonder like if that motivation is what launched the Blizzard in 1985 or if they're independent events. I'm not saying that I found any evidence of them being tied, but it is just interesting to note the timing of Culver's comes around in 1984. The blizzard goes national in 1985.

I don't think it's a coincidence. The timing, I think they absolutely were like, we have to beat them to the punch or else. What are we doing? That's different than McDonald's. Right. Right. Uh, who, who then brought in the McFlurry, which is the same thing. So the Blizzard sold 175 million units in its first year. There's also a Royal Blizzard, which is filled with sauces in the center.

Oh, I've never heard that. I have never heard of it. I do wish that they had more royalty to their brand naming. Like it seems like they're Dairy Queen and then all of their theming is around like cold. All of the photos around the Dairy Queen we were at had like black and white 1950s photos and there was a clown like I think they had some kind of old clown

mascot. I can send you the photo that might have been discontinued. But yeah, it's kind of weird they They don't have correctly if I'm wrong, maybe the dairy queen commercials do have like a queen mascot, like Burger King, but I've never seen one. No, I don't think I have either. I've seen, I feel like I've seen a crown as part of their marketing, uh, like a DQ in a crown, but that's just somewhere in my memory. I can't, I haven't seen it recently. I don't know if I'm making that up or if that's just a logical association to make.

Yeah. I think if you're working in Dairy Queen marketing right now in their department and you're working on their commercials, bring in a mascot. I mean, this is the stuff we love. Yeah. Burger King gives out crowns. Why not give out scepters? Yeah. Absolutely.

A scepter, a little cape, you know. Have servants change your shoes for you or something, you know. Could have like a high pitched voice, you know, like the queen. Oh, yes, I am the Dairy Queen. Exactly. I would love that. Can I hear you do a high pitched voice? Oh, the Dairy Queen. Oh, you actually can. Welcome.

You have such a deep voice that I'm like, can he go high? It's me, the Dairy Queen. As a marketing gimmick, Dairy Queen flips blizzards upside down before serving starting in 2015. If a blizzard wasn't flipped, customers would get a free one on their next visit, but that varies by location and isn't a requirement from corporate. And if you're in the drive-through, it's one flip per car, not per blizzard, which almost feels like a, like a risky game of like, oh, I'm going to spill on you.

Like it feels like something you do to mess with like a child. Yeah. Yeah. Do they hold the cup over the people as they're doing it? Probably not. Really? Like probably not. I think they do it like leaning over the counter or whatever. But how many accidents have they had? I wonder where it just somehow did not congeal correctly.

Yeah, it just wasn't wasn't thick enough. Yeah, no, no. Maybe it's never happened. Maybe it's never happened. But yeah, it does. It feels like you're playing with fire. And definitely if you hold it long enough, it will happen. It will. Like that's just how gravity moves a quarter of an inch or something. Like when it's still in the cup. Yeah.

Another fan favorite marketing promotion is free Cone Day offered by Dairy Queen on the first day of spring every year, which is tomorrow. For those of you listening to this episode on its release day. Oh, my go, go, go. Thursday, March 20th, 2025 is Dairy Queen's Free Cone Day. This get out to Garden Grove, you guys. It's a little far from L.A., but but this is you don't just have to go

to Grill and Chill. You can go to there's one in the Burbank Mall, but it's just treats. Oh, OK. It's not little far from LA, but you don't just have to go to grill and chill. You can go to, there's one in the Burbank mall, but it's just treats. It's not a hot food. Then get your ass to the mall. Although they, I did walk by there. I went and saw a movie last night and they're, they had hot dogs. They didn't have burgers. So it's not like, yeah, we didn't drive all that way literally for nothing,

but they do have hot food. I have yet to have the hot dogs from there. Yeah. I don't think, did they have hot dogs at the I have yet to have the hot dogs from there. Yeah. Have you had them? I don't think, did they have hot dogs at the one we went to? I didn't see hot dogs on the menu. I don't think so.

They're very burger forward. I took a photo. Yeah. We can find out. Nope. Nope, not taking time for that. Moving on. Oh, I was kidding, but I mean.

I'm not going to. Okay. In 1986, Gwen Stefani and her brother Eric formed no doubt while working at a Dairy Queen. History in the making. They were probably terrible at their jobs if that's what they're spending all their time doing. I don't know. I don't know how much bandwidth being a Dairy Queen employee takes from you. I feel like when you clock out, you're not you're not taking your work home with you. I think you can do your job for like eight hours a day and go home and not

worry about Dairy Queen and have creative energy. I'll talk about this later, but the woman that was working the register when we were there was very astute knew the menu by heart and was so helpful. She's studying in her off hours. I think she's like going above and beyond the call of her. Yeah. Um, the brand's trademark includes its Curly Q soft serve top, which is occasionally referred to as The Q

by DQ Diehards and employees. The Q, okay. Well, that's getting my conspiratorial mind going. I don't know if I like that so much. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They all start there. Dairy Queen did start on like 8chan or whatever.

Yeah, what is Trump trying to tell us through the soft serve? Yeah. Think about it. The company's secret soft serve recipe is kept in a safe deposit box with limited access. I mean, of course it is. Yeah, I mean, how many McDonald's thieves have tried to crack that case? I would love a movie that's like about like, we gotta figure out what are the 17 seasonings in the Bloomin' Onions?

It must have been a huge problem back in the day because they all have to like copyright everything, trademark everything, because people were stealing shit left and right back in the day. They don't exist for no reason. Well, that's the thing. I forget the name of the bakery,

but the bakery that invented the cronut was a big deal 10, 15 years ago, whatever, how long it's been. And now like yum yum donuts has a cronut and it's kind of got to suck when you come up with this thing and you're like, this is going to be the thing that puts us on the map. Right. And I just struggled to remember their name. Not even struggled.

I didn't remember their name. So it's like, you can create this interesting culinary addition that almost becomes a household. Like the cronut is something a lot of people have heard of, but the bakery itself isn't. So I do understand the idea of either patenting, I mean patents are expensive, but patenting, copywriting, trademarking, whatever it is that you have to do to protect your recipes.

You got to clamp down. What is Dr. Pepper's, the 31 flavors? But they're not gonna tell you what they are. Yeah. You know? 23, I thought. 23? Sounds right. I think it's 23. Again, I don't think so.

31 flavors is Baskin-Robbins. You know, these are two things that I don't have very much in my life anymore. Yeah. I try. Dairy Queen ice cream cakes are made directly using the soft serve machine. Oh, okay. To me that's like driving your car.

If you want to wash your car in your driveway, driving your car past the faucet on the side of the house instead of attaching a hose to it. It's like, like, what, what are we doing? You're, you're bringing a cake over to your little nozzle. It's more authentic, you know, if it ain't broke. It just seems funny to me. Yeah, I don't go to Dairy Queen for efficiency. Yeah, I go for the classic childhood memories and reacquainting myself with my grandson. Yeah, Dairy Queen holds the Guinness World Record for the largest ice cream cake,

which weighed over 10 tons. Oh my god. And in 2005, a 22 foot blizzard weighing 8,224 pounds also set a world record. It's that same 14 year old kid grown up today making these requests. Bigger! Bigger! Thicker! Thicker! Yeah, that would actually be very funny.

Some 14 year old just walks into the Dairy Queen, Bet you can't do this. Sit down. Yeah, they have a be very funny. Some 14 year old just walks into the Dairy Queen, bet you can't do this. Sit down. Yeah, they have a rule at Dairy Queen that they don't back down from a bet. So it's canon, it's established. Yeah, no challenge, unaccepted. DQ also owns Orange Julius.

You can find Orange Julius smoothies on some DQ menus. And they also own Carmel Corn, a flavored popcorn company from Wyoming. They're really, yeah, I was surprised to even see the cakes in there when we walked in. They've never stopped expanding their, like what they do. Which honestly I think is a must in the fast food game. Look at the resiliency of Taco Bell,

which is always announcing new things. That's true, they get weirder and weirder. Cheesecake Factory, I don't know where they're gonna to expand. Here's the thing. Cheesecake Factory. I mean, I'm sure they're not, well, actually I'm not sure, but they don't seem like they're hurting for business, but it's like, you could, what if you just kept half of those menu items locked and then made them seasonal releases? The Disney vault of Cheesecake Factory. Yes. I think they should do that for sure. The Cheesecake Vault.

Once you get your audience hooked, chemically addicted to it, then you take it away, then you have the power. Then you release it on Blu-ray. Then you release it on 4K. Updated with some new shots, but that's it. That's all you get. Dairy Queen is owned by Berkshire Hathaway. The conglomerate bought it in 1998,

making Warren Buffett the Dairy King. Oh my goodness. That guy makes some good investments I hear. I mean, he's a billionaire. Wow. That's a little sad that this whole thing has been just swallowed up by a giant conglomerate. If it's a giant national chain you've heard of,

odds are it has. I know, but it's so sweet to look at the wall and see the black and white 1950s photos of like a guy in a little truck with a dream and a dream of one day getting swallowed up by a multinational billion dollar corporation. Yeah. Yeah. America. America.

In 2024, competitive eater LA Beast answered a challenge at the Butler, New Jersey location of Dairy Queen to eat a six pound soft serve in six minutes. He succeeded and then some as he accidentally ate some of the paper wrapper around the cone. And then he had horrible diarrhea for a week. The brain freeze is something that like, that would stop me in my tracks. I brain freeze at cold water.

And I'm not, that's not an exaggeration. I brain freeze so easily my teeth will start to hurt if it's too cold Yeah, we got like teeth sensitivity. Yeah, yeah How does he do it? He must have had a special mind. I mean, it's only six minutes long if you want to watch it It's not that hard to see I'd watch it. Yeah Yeah, after this. And lastly, here are Dairy Queen slogans throughout the years. Nobody does ice cream like Dairy Queen from 1940 to 48. Until 1954, it was then My Dairy Queen. My Dairy Queen.

It's just not trying hard, unless it's like, my Sharona. My Dune, my Dairy Queen. For 19 years, from 1954 until the early 70s, it was Dairy Queen and you. They were like, oh, we need something other than My Dairy Queen. What about if we change the subject verb agreement? What if instead of the first person, it's the second person? My Dairy Queen to Dairy Queen and you. Bob, you're a genius. Keep it coming.

From 1972 to 1984, I like this one. Did somebody say Dairy Queen? No, Jeremy. We're not going. We're not going. Leave us alone. For only two years, they had For the Love of Cool Sweets and Hot Foods. Right?

For the Love of Sweets and Hot? That sounds like, you know, you stub your toe or something. For the Love of Swe and hot, that sounds like you stub your toe or something. For the love of sweets and hot food. You know? Oh, you did grow up in a very Christian household. So that does seem like the type of euphemism that would be- You gotta find replacement words. Yeah. Yeah.

You should start doing that. For the love of hot foods. And then, We Treat You Right lasted for 16 years. That's the one that I remember. That was until 2001. So that was like my childhood that I remember. Um, that was until, uh, 2001. So that was like my, my childhood. I remember DQ we treat you right. Yeah, they treat us right.

Um, from 21 to 2010 was something different. Okay. It feels like the advertising team, like that was their prompt, like from the, the higher ups, just like something different. And then they were just smart asses. That was their prompt like from the higher ups. Yeah, just like something different They were just smart asses it's like yeah, you stayed up smoking weed all night. No, I didn't study You just turned the paper in blank and the guy sees something different. That's obvious. Oh my god. I'm gonna raise What I think was their best slogan only lasted from 2010 to 2012 so good. It's

ridiculous only lasted from 2010 to 2012. So good, it's re-DQ-less. Now that's out of the box thinking. That's good. That's great punmanship. Re-DQ-less? I, yeah, that's incredible. I'm mad that I didn't know about it. Maybe that's why they stopped doing it. It was only two years. Wow, yeah, we were in college.

Yeah, but yeah. I'm not getting Dairy Queen in college. I'm expanding my palette. Yeah, me too. I was going across the street to Water Burger and continuing to expand my palette within Water Burger. That's such a good one. 2012 to 2019 was kind of lame. It was just fan food, not fast food.

Fan food? Yeah, they swung and they missed. And then they stuck with it for seven or eight years. Like you're fans of the food? What are they trying to say? Like it's food for our fans. It's fan food not fast. They're getting arrogant You know they let go of the personal and that or the fact that Air is an ingredient in their blizzards. Maybe it's for fans The fact that we have to think about it this much means it's a terrible slogan it blows

And then their current slogan is happy tastes good. I like that one. But all of those paneling comparison to the jingle we know from growing up in the Lone Star state. Sing it with me Tyler. DQ! Do you not know this one? I thought we were going to make something up.

No, this is a real thing. DQ! That's what I like about Texas. Yeah. Yes. Now it's ringing a bell. I really thought you would just like have that one logged and loaded. I thought we were doing like one of those

SNL Weekend Update things where I have to just follow you and just be like DQ, it has soft serve and we love it and we're going to it now. Honestly, you're about to have to make up lyrics in just a minute because that will do it for this week's Eat Deets. Tyler, I hope you were paying attention so that you know how to go from absolute zero

to a globally recognized eatery because the next few minutes are all about you and your vision for a themed chain restaurant dining experience of your own. This is the restaurant of your dreams! My restaurant is called Arctic Lies and it only serves- No, no, no, you don't have to like go into- you don't have to sing the whole- Oh, it's just more vaguely about it.

We're just introducing the segment. Chill, dude. Okay, okay, alright. This is the restaurant of your dreams! You're gonna fucking love this restaurant in Nez. You have no choice but to go with the... Because it's in your dreams. You can't control your dreams. I asked you to add one line.

Take all the knowledge that you have gleaned. This is the restaurant of your dreams. Okay, that went terribly. Tyler, tell me all about a restaurant concept that you see missing in the world that you only wish you could see come to fruition. It must be practical, delicious, and memorable. Three, two, one, go. Okay, I've been telling people this idea for years,

and I think it's great. And one day, if I have enough fundage, it will become a side- Fundage? Money. How was that limited vocabulary? How could you even write a pitch for this place? It's one of the new words, it's on TikTok, it's really hip.

All right, let's hear it. Arctic Slice. It's a pizza place, it's a full restaurant dine-in service that only has cold pizza. I hate it. I love cold pizza. You order pizza the night before. Are you coughing because I made you sing metal?

Yes, I am. I do not listen to metal. I don't like metal and now my throat hurts and this is one of the reasons why. I'm okay, I'm gonna live, you'll see. Arctic Slice, I've told many people about this and I've already got a bunch of would-be investors on board. They're gonna say merch.

I got, yeah, I've made t-shirts and hats, that's where you start. You build up, you know. So, you know how you love your leftovers out of your fridge in the morning? You wake up on a Saturday after having a party the night before, and you got like half a pizza in there,

and you take it out, and you're like, I could microwave this and get that soggy pizza vibe, or you can just eat it cold and like dip it in ranch. That's one of my favorite things to do on a Saturday morning. And if it's not one of yours, then you're out of your fucking mind. Look, I'm gonna say this.

I have been supportive and uplifting of all of my guests' dream restaurants. I think this should fail. I think it's destined to fail. Because like pizza's not soggy anymore when you warm it up the next day because air fryers exist. Put it in an air fryeryer you could get an air fryer but look there's something about the coldness of pizza that is just a different feel it's a different vibe it makes

you think of quiet mornings also Arctic are we throwing it in the fridge it could be okay here's how it works just room temp and also I haven't gotten to the aesthetic of the restaurant itself. Oh, we will. It's college vibes. It's like, it's messy on purpose. You go in there. Grow up. It's- You need to grow up. It's casual. It's like couches with holes in them and stuff.

It's like going back to like a sort of shitty apartment where four dudes live and- Why is anyone pursuing this? I am because I don don't know, it's nostalgic, I think, of, like, going over to your friend's place, we were like, wow, y'all should do the dishes, you know? But, but you guys are my... And by the way, we don't do our dishes at the Arctic Slides.

We throw them out. That's the biggest expense of this restaurant. And... And they're not paper plates. They're, they're, like, purchased plates. Yeah. Um, we serve beer 24 7 and little red. So look up. I don't think you can get certification for that Look we haven't even started the paperwork yet We'll see how it goes

But Arctic slice is gonna change the world because every anybody could do warm pizza hot pizza You know, but Papa John's't. Papa John's is phenomenal. What are you talking about? Are you serious? I loved Papa John's growing up. I haven't had in years, but... Papa John's is trash. And I say that as someone who worked

at three different Domino's pizzas in Texas. So I'm very close to the pizza industry and it's in my future. Once I make two more indie movies and realize that there's no money in that, I am pivoting right to Arctic Slice. Get ready, people. Tyler, as your friend, I want to let you know,

I will be there on opening day with Picket Signs protesting this garbage idea. This is the rest of your dreams. And maybe your nightmare too. Oh, God, you're going to be coughing for the next of your dreams. And maybe your nightmare too. Oh God, you're gonna be coughing for the next 20 minutes now. No, I found a range that worked for me on that one. Okay. Well, thanks for going over all of that with me, Tyler.

I now have a better insight into what you dream about. I don't remember my dreams. It's really sad. I am in the same boat. I have found that going to bed earlier actually made me start dreaming again. Oh. Yeah.

So now let's bring things back to reality and see what other people think of Dairy Queen in this week's Yelp from Strangers. We need a little yelp, a little yelp, a little yelp from strangers. A one star, two star, three star, four by I. So get a little Yelp, a little Yelp, a little Yelp from Strangers. A little Yelp, a little Yelp.

Give us those complaints while you literally white and die. Yelp! Alright, this is Yelp from Strangers, our segment where we turn to Yelp and read out our favorite 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5-star Yelp reviews of the very restaurant that we dined at. Tyler, do you mind if I start us off with the first review? I don't mind at all. Alright. 5-star review.

So this is a 5-star review. This one's from I'm Renee R. from Fayetteville, North Carolina, April 18th, 2023. Craving for DQ, I stumbled into this location. Three young males, one possibly eight feet tall. Bear and Trump was there. Is he eight feet tall? He's like almost seven feet down. I placed order.

I asked if he could put banana split into a cup not original tray I am driving I am taking it on the road surprise surprise He said okay won't look pretty but well, I'm not looking for pretty just a banana split in a cup So I take it to go and eat it while driving Wait, you need a spoon to eat a banana split. I presume he had a spoon. Yeah, so he's driving, he's got one hand on the wheel and is somehow scooping it out and serving it to himself. I think he's waiting for it to like melt.

He's doing a little bit of a pour, drinking it and then biting bananas, the chunks come up. Wow, but once again this falls under our, the policy we think they have, which is no challenge unaccepted. You know. I dare you to put that banana's foot in a cup. Okay. They did it. Yeah. It's just the little things that can make a client happy

and this one, even writing a positive review. I want to say thank you. A client. If you receive the same outstanding customer service, don't be cheap and tip these young adults. They are probably from Pacifica High School. So support this establishment and tip these young adults. They are probably from Pacifica High School, so support this establishment and tip these kids too. I do.

Again, thank you. P.S., sad to see Bagel Place shut down due to fire. A very unnecessary shout out, but yeah, how sad. That really took it, it was inspiring about the tipping. And then it got real tragic at the end. I know, it's just like, you literally just, all you did was bring it down at the end.

They don't know when to stop typing. Yeah. One Star Review. This One Star Review is from Eliza H. from South Redondo, Redondo Beach, California. It reads, on August 20th, 2022, owed to Dairy Queen. Food gave me gas. The service was ass.

Cashier had some sass. Cooks should go to class. Next time I'll pass. I mean, Elijah, you put more work into this than you needed to. And it's kind of beautiful. You know how to rhyme with gas. I love this. I kind of do too.

Like usually one star reviews, I'm like, look, you've got such an axe to grind and you come across this bit, like no one ever comes across as, or people very rarely come across as the good guy in their one star reviews. Usually it feels like it's a them issue. Elijah seems fun.

Yes, it doesn't seem like he's that emotionally scarred by the experience. Now, if you can come back and write something, a creative piece like that, you're doing okay. Like it almost felt like I had a bad experience, let's have fun with it as opposed to I had a bad experience and you need to know about it. Yes. Right?

It was an event, Sesh. It was just... It was like, here's a fun little way to put how I felt about this. Maybe he's a full-time poet now, and this was his first step. This was his launching point. Where'd you get discovered, Yelp? Yeah. I'm a Yelp poet.

Yeah. Did you like those two reviews? You can get three more of them over on my Patreon. That's patreon.com slash fine dining podcast, but not only do you get extra Yelp reviews you get an exclusive Fine dining episode every single month. I've recently done Ivers, which is a seafood chain up in Washington I did dick's last resort a place that's known for its rude service on purpose. And for January, I covered Dan's hamburgers, which is literally my favorite burger on the planet.

It's a small chain in Austin, Texas, and I get to gush about it. So go check that out. That's patreon.com slash fine dining podcast. I appreciate your support. back to the episode. That's part one tune in next week as we review dairy queen grill and chill. That's right. It's one of the hot food dairy queens and we got burgers there. So I'm officially entering dairy queen into the 2025 September girl competition along with cook Cookout, Arctic Circle, and Wendy's. Four more will be announced. Next week, we'll go into everything

that was good about DQ, everything that was not so good, and everything that was just there. In the meantime, Tyler, thanks for coming on. Where can people get more of you online? Thank you so much, Michael. I'm mostly on Instagram at Tyler Harris Eaton. You can also check out stuff about Mysterious W. I'm mostly on Instagram at Tyler Harris Eaton. You can also check out stuff about

Mysterious Ways of the Movie on Instagram at Mysterious Ways Movie. And then I'm also on Facebook and Blue Sky now as Tyler Harris Eaton. Really, if you go to my Instagram, everything else is linked through there. Yeah. Sorry, did you just say Facebook?

Yeah. Are you asking people to send you friend requests? Like, what's your end game here? Did you just say Facebook? Yeah. Are you asking people to send you friend requests? Like what's your what's your end game? If you hear my voice on this and you think man, this guy sounds like we should be friends. Like I have similar fast food opinion. You're not going to accept it if you've never heard of them. I might stop leading my audience on. Let's be friends, guys.

Yeah. OK. You can follow me on Blue Sky Instagram and TikTok at Fine Dining Podcast. I also now have a Discord, so head on over to my website. You can find a link to join the Discord, join the discussion, post your food pictures, talk about the latest episodes, get a sneak peek into the Septemberger 2025, help me seed the restaurants in their tournament order. Oh and tell your crazy restaurant stories. I might even bring back the what's going on over their segment but have it be from listeners and put it into episodes of the show even if it's not

about the restaurant I'm doing. So I want to hear your restaurant stories. In the meantime, Tyler, thanks again for coming on. We're just going to be sitting here for one week before we review it, waiting on our table. We'll see you all next week. Have a fine day. Waiting on our table The step is done and we had some fun Now we're waiting on our table Waiting on our table Join us next time, we're stuck in line Waiting on our table Waiting on our table

We're so hungry, tummy's grumbling Waiting on our table Waiting on our table We gotta continue our search for mediocrity Yeah Waiting on our table, waiting on our table We'll be waiting and dissipating Waiting on our table, waiting on our table

We're swimming in between, we're digging in Cause we're waiting on our table, waiting on our table We've got an appetite, but just sit tight Cause we're waiting on our table, waiting on our table We've got an appetite for just a type Cause we're waiting on our table, waiting on our table Sir, you'll continue when we see you next week Hee hee hee, for the beloved Waiting on our table, waiting on our table Have a fine day!