Legal Disclaimer: To ensure our legal team does not have a collective heart attack, all the DQ® products used below are appropriately trademarked as DQ Blizzard® Treat, DQ GrillBurger®, Brownie EarthQuake®, MooLatté®Frozen Blended Coffee, FlameThrower®GrillBurger, Dilly®Bar, and Arctic Rush®Slush.
On the first day of Christmas, DQ gave to me… An ice cream cake decorated with a Christmas tree.
On the second day of Christmas, DQ gave to me… Two Blizzard Treats and an ice cream cake decorated with a Christmas tree.
On the third day of Christmas, DQ gave to me… Three chicken salads, two Blizzard Treats and an ice cream cake decorated with a Christmas tree.
On the fourth day of Christmas, DQ gave to me… Four FlameThrower GrillBurgers, three chicken salads, two Blizzard Treats and an ice cream cake decorated with a Christmas tree.
On the fifth day of Christmas, DQ gave to me… Five. Onion. Riiings… Four FlameThrower GrillBurgers, three chicken salads, two Blizzard Treats and an ice cream cake decorated with a Christmas tree.
On the sixth day of Christmas, DQ gave to me… Six ArcticRush Slushes. Five. Onion. Riiings… Four FlameThrower GrillBurgers, three chicken salads, two Blizzard Treats and an ice cream cake decorated with a Christmas tree.
On the seventh day of Christmas, DQ gave to me… Seven BrownieEarthQuakes, six ArcticRush Slushes. Five. Onion. Riiings… Four FlameThrower GrillBurgers, three chicken salads, two Blizzard Treats and an ice cream cake decorated with a Christmas tree.
On the eighth day of Christmas, DQ gave to me… Eight Dilly Bars, seven BrownieEarthQuakes, six ArcticRush Slushes. Five. Onion. Riiings… Four FlameThrower GrillBurgers, three chicken salads, two Blizzard Treats and an ice cream cake decorated with a Christmas tree.
On the ninth day of Christmas, DQ gave to me… nine Crispy Chicken Wraps, eight Dilly Bars, seven BrownieEarthQuakes, six ArcticRush Slushes. Five. Onion. Riiings… Four FlameThrowerGrillBurgers, three chicken salads, two Blizzard Treats and an ice cream cake decorated with a Christmas tree.
On the tenth day of Christmas, DQ gave to me… Ten Banana Splits, nine Crispy Chicken Wraps, eight Dilly Bars, seven BrownieEarthQuakes, six ArcticRush Slushes. Five. Onion. Riiings… Four FlameThrowerGrillBurgers, three chicken salads, two Blizzard Treats and an ice cream cake decorated with a Christmas tree.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, DQ gave to me… Eleven Premium Fruit Smoothies, ten Banana Splits, nine Crispy Chicken Wraps, eight Dilly Bars, seven BrownieEarthQuakes, six ArcticRush Slushes. Five. Onion. Riiings… Four FlameThrowerGrillBurgers, three chicken salads, two Blizzard Treats and an ice cream cake decorated with a Christmas tree.
On the twelfth day of Christmas, DQ gave to me… Twelve MooLatté Drinks , eleven Premium Fruit Smoothies, ten Banana Splits, nine Crispy Chicken Wraps, eight Dilly Bars, seven BrownieEarthQuakes, six ArcticRush Slushes. Five. Onion. Riiings… Four FlameThrowerGrillBurgers, three chicken salads, two Blizzard Treats and an ice cream cake decorated with a Christmas tree.
Ahhh, the madness of Black Friday is finally just around the corner. Crazed shoppers and deal-chasers have been planning their Friday early morning shopping excursion for the last several weeks. I can truthfully say that I’ve never been up at 2 a.m. on Friday heading to my local mall, but I think that has to do with the fact that I’m not willing to leave my warm cozy home for sub-zero temps and snow.
This year may be different for me though, because I recently received a 40% off coupon for one of my favorite retailers and it’s valid until noon! Heck, maybe I’ll bring my daughter and we’ll make a day of it, complete with a stop by Orange Julius®. PS – my local mall actually has THREE Orange Julius locations, which makes it really easy to fuel up while shopping! We hear it from loyal fans all the time, “My holiday shopping trip isn’t complete without my stop by Orange Julius. It’s part of my holiday tradition!”
What is your holiday tradition? Will you be out and about at 3 a.m. this Friday?
I was back in the Chicagoland area this past September, and had a chance to take my youngest daughter to the DQ store my family used to go to when I was a girl. Such memories – and it hasn’t changed much. When I was younger it was out in the middle of no place – of course everything has built up around it. We moved from that area when I was 10…so it feels as if it has been a couple of lifetimes since I’d been there.
Mom and Dad always made trips to the DQ store a special treat. We didn’t go too often – but on a hot summer night, nothing beat a DQ treat. Usually we got cones or sundaes – though I remember Mr. Misty’s (now our Arctic Rush), DQ Push-Ups (Do any of you remember the pushups???) and root beer floats. If we were really good, or had done something special, we could order the BIGGEST item on the menu – the Banana Split.
Of course we took photos. My daughter just laughs at me – and then poses for the photo. This one is one of my favorites. Right up there with photos of us at the World’s Largest Frying Pan, The Field of Dreams and the Spam Can…
My daughter had a birthday last week, and since she is now a freshman in college, it was her first-ever birthday away from home. Birthdays have always been a big deal at our house. Ever since my girls were little, during the night before, I always decorated our dining room with streamers and blew up an entire package of balloons to scatter on the floor, so that when they woke up in the morning and came downstairs for breakfast, there could be no doubt that it was a special day.
This year, driving 150 miles to decorate my daughter’s dorm room wasn’t going to be an option, but I still wanted to do something to make her day special. Then I remembered that the tiny town in northwest Minnesota where she is going to school has a Dairy Queen/Brazier® store within walking distance of campus (well, okay, everything there is within walking distance of campus, but I digress).
So I stopped by my favorite DQ Grill & Chill® restaurant here in Minneapolis and bought her a DQ® gift card, making sure to put enough on it that she could treat herself, her roommate and some friends from her dorm floor to birthday Blizzard® Treats. Then I tucked it into a birthday card and put it in the mail in time to arrive on her big day.
It wasn’t the same as watching her blow out her candles in person, of course, but I did feel a little better knowing that she’d be able to celebrate with her friends, and have a little something to remind her of home.
I’m burnin’ up. I’ve resisted for as long as possible, but it struck the other day while I was out running. I had on my mp3 player (I don’t own an iPod but that’s another story) which is so uncharacteristic of me because since I started running marathons and they weren’t allowed, I haven’t used one. So anyway, I have my mp3 tuned to our local hits stations KDWB, and I hear this pipsqueak voice and think to myself, I don’t even like this kid, what a bunch of hype! I go to turn it to another radio station, but accidentally pause. All of a sudden this kid I’d been trying to avoid had my full attention. It was like a car accident. I didn’t want to look but couldn’t turn away, I was hooked.
You smile, I smile….
I actually think this song would be a fitting theme song for the DQ® system because I truly feel like when we make our customers smile, it makes us smile. Of course the paycheck is nice and you can’t live on smiles but, it really makes our jobs worthwhile when we see you smile! So much so that it’s even our motto, a smile and a story. What’s yours?!
“When I feel that chill, smell that fresh cut grass/I’m back in my helmet, cleats and shoulder pads/Standing in the huddle, listening to the call/Fans going crazy for the boys of fall” — Kenny Chesney
One of my greatest joys as a father has been serving as an assistant coach for my son’s youth football team. Last year was the first time he got the opportunity to put on the pads, strap on the helmet and feel what it was like to block an opposing player, tackle the tailback and be tackled. For some boys on the team, it took an entire season just to learn the three point stance or proper way to throw or catch a pass. For others, running the ball, playing quarterback and scoring touchdowns came rather naturally. No matter the skills or level of talent or athleticism they brought to the team, each grew and contributed to the team in some small way.
This year, the fifth-grade boys are a bit bigger; the fundamentals are coming easier and the game is getting faster. It has been rewarding to watch how quickly the team has jelled in just a few short practices and how hard players are starting to hit and work as team. The plays are more complex and when executed correctly, there are smiles, cheers and high fives all around.
We play most of our games on Saturday mornings and there is nothing like hearing the parents and grandparents cheer like crazy when someone breaks a tackle and heads for the end zone. In the end, it isn’t who has won or lost as we really don’t keep score or any standings, but how each player did that day and improving from one week to the next.
As in life, the football season goes by quickly and before you know it, it’s over. Therefore we do everything we can to celebrate those little and large victories with the boys of fall as often as possible. Oh, yeah, and when those celebrations just happen to end up at the local DQ® restaurant because someone’s Dad happens to work for the corporation, well, it doesn’t get much sweeter than that.
Tell us how you celebrate life’s little victories.
So. Did you hear the one about the goat wandering the Missouri countryside? No? You are in for some kind of a treat!
One DQ® fan from Bakersfield, CA, wrote to us and noted that this “Mexico Goat” (named for the Mexico, Missouri, area in which he was found) LOVES Blizzard® Treats!
Crazy!
The good news is the Mexico Goat is no longer wandering the countryside and is safe in his new home. Check out his Facebook Page!
It is with great pleasure that we announce the winners of our DQ®Operation Happy Birthday contest. We asked you to submit a creative video of yourself wishing our signature Blizzard® Treat a “Happy Birthday,” and boy, did you deliver! It was exciting to receive so many great entries to review. You made it quite hard to choose the top three! But remember, everyone who entered is a winner and will receive a $25.00 gift card just for participating!
So, without further ado, the three top videos are:
First Place – $250.00 Dairy Queen® Gift Card
Matthew Eckert, Pennsylvania
Second Place – $150.00 Dairy Queen Gift Card
Quinn Prunty, Maryland
Third Place – $50.00 Dairy Queen Gift Card
Casey McClarnon, Minnesota
Hypercolor, stirrup leggings, body suits, snap bracelets, Girbaud jeans and Orange Julius® drinks. What do all of these fabulous things have in common you might ask? The mall and my childhood! I hear it all the time from customers , “Oh my god, you guys still exist. I used to get Orange Julius drinks all the time at [insert mall name here]!” Yes, we do still exist and yes we continue to grow today, but that is beside the point for now.
Every time I come across someone who makes this statement, I can’t help but be immediately taken back 15+ years to my childhood. This time of year brings back for me all the exhausting back-to-school shopping trips I was forced to go on with my mother. I dreaded it every year because good ol’ ma was going to make me try on those ‘old lady’ jeans that I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing and she would certainly never understand my desire to stop by Contempo Casuals to find an outfit that closely resembled what Kelly Kapowski wore that week on Saved by the Bell.
This weekend, I stopped by the mall with my mom for a few ‘must haves’ and the mall was buzzing with young girls and their mothers attempting the same impossible task that we did 15 years ago. My mom and I couldn’t help but laugh. Granted they weren’t searching for Girbaud jeans (p.s. those still exist www.girbaud.com), jellies or Multiples but we could read the angst on the majority of faces. We strolled past one of the Orange Julius stores and were reminded that the highlight of our shopping trip was always a stop by this one destination because it was one location where we could buy something and not argue. Judging by the line that day some things haven’t changed.
As we left the mall I realized three things were certain. One, as my daughter grows I can only hope that she doesn’t care enough about clothes to go back-to-school shopping each year. Secondly, if she does care, a stop by the Orange Julius store might help ease the pain. Lastly, I missed all the fashions that I loved during my childhood and would do anything to get my hands on a pair of old Guess jeans with a pinch roll!
First off, we would like to thank all of our consumers who took part in Miracle Treat Day. Once again it was an amazing day. For those who are unfamiliar with Miracle Treat Day, it’s the one day during the year where a $1 or more from every Blizzard Treat purchase goes to Children’s Miracle Network hospitals.
This year I had the oppurtunity to hang out with Miss America and the Blizzardmobile check out the video recapping this amazing day! If you missed Miracle Treat Day but still would like to donate to Children’s Miracle Network, you can still do that by visiting their website.
