International Dairy Queen, Inc. (DQ) is an American multinational fast food chain founded in 1940 and currently headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota.

They convinced friend and loyal customer Sherb Noble to offer the product in his ice cream store in Kankakee, Illinois.

[17] In the 1990s, investors bought Dairy Queen stores that were individually owned, intending to increase profitability through economies of scale.

On October 30, 2017, Vasari LLC filed for bankruptcy and announced it was closing 29 DQ stores, including ten in the Texas Panhandle.

[19][20] At the end of fiscal year 2014, Dairy Queen reported over 6,400 stores in more than 25 countries; about 4,500 of them (approximately 70%) were in the United States.

[15][16][21] Dairy Queens were a fixture of social life in small Midwestern and Southern United States towns during the 1950s and 1960s.

So-called "Limited Brazier" locations may additionally offer hot dogs, barbecue beef (or pork) sandwiches, and in some cases french fries and chicken, but not hamburgers.

Dairy Queen Full Brazier restaurants serve a typical fast-food menu featuring burgers, french fries, grilled and crispy chicken, frozen treats, and hot dogs.

This third-party financing covers the franchise fee, startup costs, equipment, inventory, accounts receivable, and payroll.

[29] They were also known as the "Treat Center" concept, an enhanced version of the original stores also serves drinks and foods from the Orange Julius menu.

The name "Brazier" originated in 1957 when one of the company's franchisees, Jim Cruikshank, set out to develop the standardized food system.

DQ Grill & Chill locations feature hot food, treats, table delivery, and self-serve soft drinks.

They usually offer an expanded menu, including breakfast, GrillBurgers, grilled sandwiches, and limited table service (customers still place orders at the counter).

In December 2001, Chattanooga, Tennessee, was the site of the first two Dairy Queen Grill and Chill restaurants in the United States.

[33] In 2023, a Grill & Chill location in Phoenix, Arizona had a large red spoon statue stolen from the front of the restaurant.

In 1962, the Buster Bar, consisting of vanilla soft serve in the shape of a small cup with a layer of and covered with peanuts and chocolate, was invented by David Skjerven in Grafton, North Dakota.

[citation needed] A popular Dairy Queen item is the Blizzard, which is soft-serve mechanically blended with mix-in ingredients such as sundae toppings and/or pieces of cookies, brownies, or candy.

Selling for the premium price of 50 cents in 1962,[citation needed] the original "Blizzards" invented by Samuel Temperato were available in traditional flavors such as vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, with added malt on request.

[citation needed] In addition, Dairy Queen offers a Blizzard Cake in flavors such as Oreo and Reese's.

[46][47] In 2011, International Dairy Queen Inc. filed a request for a preliminary injunction to stop Yogubliz Inc, a small California-based frozen yogurt chain, from selling "Blizzberry" and "Blizz Frozen Yogurt," alleging that the names could confuse consumers due to their similarity to Dairy Queen's Blizzard.

The mouth was dropped in 2011 after Grey New York produced outlandish spots featuring a dapper man, played by John Behlmann, sporting a mustache, performing crazy feats for Dairy Queen replacing it.

After announcing tasty menu offers, he would do something outrageous, like blow bubbles with kittens in them, water ski while boxing, or break a piñata, out of which tumbles Olympic gymnastics great Mary Lou Retton.

Later, the same firm made additional commercials based around odd situation titles with the DQ logo placed somewhere in them, like "Gary DQlones Himself," "Now That's A Lunchtime DQuandary!," "After The DQonquest," and "Well, This Is A Bit DQrazy!"

These advertisements featured Texas Country Reporter host Bob Phillips as a spokesperson since his program was mainly sponsored by Dairy Queen.

From the early-to-mid 1990s, the slogans "Hot Eats, Cool Treats" and "Think DQ" were used and preceded the aforementioned line in the Dairy Queen jingle.

Another slogan, introduced in early 2011, was "So Good It's RiDQulous,"[55] with Dairy Queen's current logo infused in the word "ridiculous."

[citation needed] The original Dairy Queen logo was simply a stylized text sign with a soft-serve cone at one end.

The initial shape was asymmetrical, with one of the side points having a greater extension than the other, especially when matched with the Brazier sign—a similarly sized yellow ovoid, tucked diagonally below its companion.

[citation needed] A yellow trapezoid Brazier sign, placed below the red Dairy Queen logo, was developed in the late 1960s.

[citation needed] The 1990s saw a new style of design, boxier with red strips containing the "Hot Eats, Cool Treats" slogan of the era near the roofline (some stores have removed this); straddling the center of the facade was a large blue sign that was a modernized take on the soft-serve cone design of the early 1950s, with white and red pinstripes trailing out from beneath the full Dairy Queen name, underneath the cone; the cone itself was now facing the building, to accommodate the physical ellipse logo; the sign continued further down the wall, with an angle and a "Brazier" logo strip.