Review No. 69: Dairy Queen
2650 Donaghey Avenue
(501) 336-8955
35.5 percent finished reviewing Conway restaurants
The Situation
She Said: Dairy Queen is a nostalgic restaurant for me; we didn’t have one in our very small town in South Dakota where I grew up, but there were DQs about in the north, and it was a treat my parents would allow us on road trips. Now, Dairy Queen is my go-to when I’m employing my tried-and-true head-cold-prevention treatment: The second I start feeling sick, I stop exercising and eat whatever I crave. That usually means I’m at the DQ drive-up for a peanut buster parfait (at least). But, on a recent Sunday, when I wasn’t even getting sick, as we headed to see our friends in a local production of The Importance of Being Earnest, we went inside to dine at our Conway DQ for the first time since we moved here 14 years ago.
He Said: We said every restaurant in Conway and dadgummit, we’re gonna make good on that pledge! Personally, I’ve never thought about Dairy Queen as a restaurant, just as a place to drive through to get ice cream. But here we were, actually going into the Conway DQ to eat actual food.
Ambience:
She Said: It’s a bright and shiny space, with that ice-cream parlor vibe loosely interpreted. And it’s just fun to be in a place with a bunch of other people eating ice cream! We came for lunch, but a lot of people seemed to be there for a sweet treat after church. There were several families with lots of kiddos, but also pairs of older ladies, and a few older-couple double dates. Ice cream for everyone!
He Said: It’s a fairly typical fast-food place on the inside, seems to me, but yes, it’s bright and pleasant. I kind of liked the decades-old black and white pictures they had hanging around the walls of Dairy Queens from all around the United States. They gave eating there the feel of being part of history.
Drinks
She Said: I guess it’s strange to come to Dairy Queen and order unsweetened ice tea with your meal, but I knew there would be a sweet dessert, so that’s what I had. It was unmemorable, which, given the context, is perfectly appropriate.
He Said: They have fountain Pepsi products and I knew what that meant: Mountain Dew.
Food
She Said: I had lunch and then I had dessert, and that’s how I think of this meal because DQ’s abilities lie in both areas. Of the fast-food hamburgers, Dairy Queen’s are some of my favorite: you can really taste the beef and there is a definite “grilled out” flavor. So, I had a hamburger combo (burger, fries and a drink). Usually, I prefer burgers with mayo and no ketchup or mustard, but at DQ, I just want the burger as they make it. It’s nostalgic for me. In size, this burger is bigger than McDonald’s, smaller than Sonic, but just right for me. The fries are very good here, light and crispy, and they come in a basket with the burgers, which is also rather nostalgic.
And then came dessert. I know that Dairy Queen offers many delicious ice cream treats, from sundaes to their famous Blizzards, with all kinds of customization options, but for me, my true love will always be the peanut buster parfait. I mean, what if I tried something else and it wasn’t as good (how could it be?). I’d feel so sad that I missed a chance for one more PBP in my life. In case you aren’t familiar, this is a tall (plastic) cup of vanilla soft-serve layered with lots of salty peanuts and hot fudge. Lots of hot fudge! Just when I thought I got to the end of the hot fudge, I would hit another vein to mine. The salt of the peanuts is such a nice flavor complement to the sweet of the ice cream and fudge. The textures all go so well together. This parfait was everything I hoped it would be.
He Said: Well, Jones, the necessity of my low-fat diet makes peanuts a particular problem for me. But then so is ice cream and chocolate. So the Peanut Buster Parfait (with 31 grams of fat, according to the Dairy Queen nutritional Website) is kind of off my radar. Dairy Queen in general is quite a problem for me, with most entrees coming in way over my fat limits. Grilled chicken is almost always the one item on a fast food menu that is possible for me. The grilled chicken sandwich here has 16 grams of fat, which is a significant difference from the 30 grams in the crispy chicken sandwich, or the 36 in the more popular bacon cheeseburger. The seasoning on the grilled chicken here gave it a bit of a tangy flavor, and put it a cut above the fairly bland grilled chicken one finds in most places.
I had the basket and so I had fries, which I agree with She Said were light and crispy, probably above average as fast food French fries go. I had actually intended to order the onion rings, which I had a dim memory of begin pretty good here, both because it would have given a bit more variety to this review and because they are a little lower in fat than the French fries—16 grams vs. the fries’ 17, according to the nutritional chart. But I forgot to do so, so all you’re getting here is a retread of Jones’s fry review and some excuses.
This being Dairy Queen, I felt it incumbent upon me to order ice cream as well. Fortunately, in this case I did remember what I had selected from the nutritional chart—a small chocolate sundae, which has only seven grams of fat. Left to its own devices, my Id would have probably ordered a large chocolate fudge malt with 38 fat grams, but my Superego exercised its dictatorial will and limited me to the seven delicious grams of chocolate-and-soft-vanilla-delivered fat. It was not especially imaginative, by my own choice, but it was satisfyingly yummy.
Service
She Said: I was pleasantly surprised with the service at Dairy Queen. We were dining in, but I expected to go to the counter to pick up the food; however, when our food order was ready, one of the servers brought it right out to us on the tray and served us each our respective meals. Another service touch I really liked was that if you are staying there to eat, they will wait to make your ice cream treat until you come back and ask for it (I assumed I’d be watching it melt on my tray while I shoved down my burger). When we said we did indeed want our desserts later, we were instructed to keep our receipt and bring it back for ice cream when we were ready. And, again, the server brought us those when they were ready. Pretty posh for fast food!
He Said: Yes, what she said. Saving the ice cream so it wouldn’t melt or wilt was an unexpected plus in the DQ service.
What We Got and What We Paid: One burger combo with French fries and unsweetened ice tea, one grilled chicken sandwich combo with French fries and a Mountain Dew, a chocolate sundae and a peanut buster parfait for $20.11.
Elapsed Time from Entry to Food Arrival: 7 minutes
Rating:
She Said: I thought the drive-through food was pretty great, and everything was that much better dining in, because the service was just a level above the usual fast-food experience. Dairy Queen is a gem of a fast-food chain…and there’s ice cream!
He Said: You get what you’d expect from fast food, and you can manage to get a whole meal here, including dessert, with 40 grams of fat.
So…He Said and She Said: Keep Dairy Queen in your fast-food indulgence rotation, for both the frozen treats AND the meal—drive through or dine in.
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