Dairy Queen History: Founding, Timeline, and Milestones - Zippia (2024)

On April 1, 1941, the McCulloughs opened another store in Moline and once again contracted the Graces to manage it for them.

Additional stores were opened in Aurora, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa, and by the end of 1942 there were a total of eight Dairy Queen businesses in operation.

In November 1946, Axene organized a meeting with 26 potential investors at the LeClaire Hotel in Moline.

In 1948, Axene arranged for 35 store owners and territory operators to meet in Minneapolis with the purpose of establishing a national organization.

Though the DQNTA had been formed in 1948 to standardize products and services for store operators, its not-for-profit status rendered it unable to enforce any of its policies.

From 1949, they began creating other varieties of soft serves such as malts, milkshakes, banana splits, dilly bars, and more.

Harry Axene presented the idea of an automatic continuous freezer to the Dairy Queen store operators convention in 1949, but when his proposal was rejected he severed ties with the system and formed the Tastee Freeze business, which he operated on the Pacific coast for 20 years.

There were 1,400 Dairy Queen stores open for business in 1950, and up until that time the menu was limited to sundaes and cones for immediate consumption, or pints and quarts to take home.

The first store in Canada opened in Melville, Saskatchewan, Canada, 1953.

Harry Oltz's patent on his continuous freezer expired in 1954, and a number of store operators refused to continue paying royalties.

The Dilly Bar debuted in 1954 at the DQ in Moorhead, Minnesota—one of the oldest locations that’s still in operation.

The company's consolidation of operating territory and its acquisition strategy proved costly, and a $2 million loss was forecast for fiscal 1970.

In May 1972, the first Dairy Queen store was opened in Tokyo.

In 1972, the company began trading its stock on the over-the-counter market; during the same year, its stock price increased from $1.50 per share to $22.75.

In 1976, McKinstry was replaced as chairman by John Mooty, who worked well with President Cooper.

By 1981, 40 percent of the stores worldwide sold Brazier® food products.

In 1987, IDQ bought the Orange Julius chain.

International Dairy Queen also purchased 60 percent of a staffing agency, Firstaff, Inc., in 1989.

In 1994 a dispute with franchisees surfaced when a group of store owners filed suit against International Dairy Queen, alleging that their efforts to develop alternative sources of food and paper supplies had been thwarted by the parent company.

In 1995, they started selling other products aside from ice creams such as the DQ Treatzza Pizza and Crispy Chicken Salad.

The biggest news of 1997 came in the fall, when it was announced that the company would be sold to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. of Omaha, Nebraska.

In 2001, the first DQ Grill and Chill restaurant opened in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Cuban spent two hours serving customers at a Dairy Queen in Coppell, Texas, in 2002, which was enough time for him to eat some humble pie, but not nearly long enough for him to perfect the trademark "Q" swirl at the top of the soft-serve cones.

And in 2005, they introduced the Grill Burgers on national TV. In the present time, they are now offering a lot of food choices the whole family will enjoy.

In 2005, they entered the Guinness record books with the world's largest Blizzard which clocked in at 8260.85 pounds.

They earned the title for the biggest ice cream cake in 2011, building a ten-ton dessert out of sponge cake and vanilla ice cream and topped it with crushed Oreo cookies.

On October 30, 2017, the Vasari LLC filed for bankruptcy and announced it was closing 29 stores, including 10 in the Texas Panhandle.

Minneapolis, MN

John McCullough,Sherb Noble