Dairy Queen
reviews and complaints

I went to the pelican rapids DQ tonight ordered a banana split, one small cone, one choc dipped cone the girl made the split another worker was sweeping floors picking up garbage he came back behind counter wiping face she asked him to make the choc cone he did and not once did he wash his hands. I refused the cone explaining why. I got a look of disgust. This DQ is an embarrassment to your organization. I guess from now on it will have to be mcdonalds.

Where has customer service gone? Evidently not to this DQ! One several occasions I have had snotty service, just dripping in bad attitude. This DQ used a pencil and paper to take your order, then transfers the order (while you are waiting at the window) to the register to finally give you the total, the employees are not friendly, they do not smile, even the managers huff and puff- they even charge for pickles! It is not uncommon to sit in the drive thru for 20+ minutes with four cars a head of you. They will not give you an actual receipt, an itemized one, and unless you can actually do math you never know if you have been over charged. However low our geographic education levels may be, there is not reason to screw over the customer. I have been over charged for two kids meals, and fought with over getting the deserts now instead of later ( DUH wasting gas) with the new certificates on the bags. What's more... they ring things up to charge the maximum to the customer for their order. I have encountered this several times, the breakfast platter. The breakfast platter comes with meat, 2 eggs, bread, and hashbrown. You may substitute the hashbrown for gravy. Now the hash browns here are $.99 and the side of gravy is $.69, so it is totally logical to order the platter with the hashbrown and add the gravy- it is cheaper that way. However I have been told by the employees that they can not ring it up that way that they must charge it the more expensive way! They were told this by management and think nothing of it. Aren't you supposed to do things with in guidelines to accommodate the customer- that is my $.30 they are taking, it may not be much, but everytime?! I ordered cheese on the eggs and did I get a nice slice of amercian cheese for my $.60? NO! I got a sparse sprinkle of shredded cheddar, YUCK! I have encountered this problem not only in this region, but even in Lexington! Maybe it is a franchise or corporate problem, because it is wide spread, the service and attitude really stinks and the quality of the food is starting to slip. It is pretty sad when you are on your way to work, and your child says that they are hungry and you have to say, "Welfare you really hungry or can you wait until lunch because I don't want to have to drive to the other side of town to get decent food because Dairy Queens is bad?" I want my children to learn to not settle! What are we telling them by feeding them food from a place that treats us badly, over charges us and doesn't not provide the customer with even a smile. I am not just paying for a convenient food experience I am paying for a pleasant experience... technically I have bought that smile!

Sad thing is, I have worked at DQ. I know how it is supposed to be. And that DQ in Berea, KY is the best I have been in- has every well rounded customer satisfaction ratio and a good drive through time.(I mean, are McDonalds and Wendy's the only ones that care about that any more?!) I work in a professional customer service setting now as an insurance agent, but I have worked my way through many years of fast food and upper restaurant service. I know what is expected, and I do expect it! Things happen, people have bad days, but a smile and an apology go a long way and those things are free!

I went to Dairy Queen for 3 blizzards for my parents and I on Friday April 18th around 8pm. I was not at all pleased with the product I received. They messed up my order and didn't even read it back to me so I could correct it. I worked at that Dairy Queen, three years ago and I know you are supposed to say the order back to the customer. I get the Blizzards I wanted, although one of them still wasn't right, and they are runny. Again, knowing from working at the DQ, you are supposed to be able to turn the Blizzard upside down and it stays there. This is not the fault of temperature (as it was only 40 some degrees and ice cream simply does not melt that fast), this is the fault of the maker, for spinning the ice cream too long. Also, I got to the bottom of my Blizzard and it wasn't even mixed at the bottom. It was still white with no chunks. Yeah, maybe I'm just being difficult, but if I am going to be paying $5 for ice cream, I want it to be well made.

I recently witnessed a dairy queen manager threaten to assault an employee if he did not punch out and leave. I was working there at the time and witnessed the whole incident. It all started with the employee asking the manager if he could make the cones as he was on register (cones are near the register) and there were only two employees (myself and the victim) working at the time. There were many blizzards on the board and we needed help with all the orders he was putting up there. The request quickly turned into an argument as the manager started getting loud with the employee saying that he didn't have to do anything, even going so far as telling us thats what we get paid to do. This is a complaint in itself because of how badly staffed we were on a nice day. The manager then started verbally assaulting the employee with swear words at which point i told him that theres no need to start swearing at him. He then got in his face as the employee started swearing back at him (mind you the manager is 36 while the employee is 18). After a while of arguing and me trying to stop them from fighting the employee proceeds to go downstairs and grab his things. The manager keeps it going by telling him if he finds anything missing or broken downstairs that he was gonna whoop his a**. After the employee is gone, I tried to stick up for him in my following conversation with the manager.

This should be looked into because as a member of that dairy queen team i witnessed many things that shouldn't be done by a manager. As an advertised family establishment i am surprised that managers can get away with verbally threatening employees with violence, even going so far as to call a friend of his that owes him a favor to find the employee after he left. This manager still works at that dairy queen and should be dealt with. I am writing about this now because of my unjust termination from that dairy queen by that same manager. The things that he says about employees even in social conversation should not be legal. It is not based on gender or race it is discrimination against anybody that isn't him. The general manager (his boss) is also within possession of a recording of the whole incident as the dairy queen has security cameras.

This incident happened on March 13, 2008 at 8:30 P.M.

I purchased a ice cream cake for my nephew's Birthday. First I could not even get someone to take my order over the phone so I asked if they could save one for me from the cooler, if they had one. Presents, games, Grandma's, my four year old nephew his little friends, make a wish and blow out the candles. Cut the cake and find hard pieces of plastic in the cake as we ate it.One of the children was choking on a piece, we thought we got it all but guess what appeared in the diaper. These pieces were very sharp. I sent a piece of plastic , pictures, receipt, and copies of other pieces to the insurance company. They were upset and wanted to know how I knew where they were located. I just looked them up the on PC. They now have told me after investigation that the plastic did not come from the cake or frosting. I am not a lair. This was in the cake I bought. This could of been a real bad thing.They don't seem to care. But I know what I know. Hard pointed plastic pieces. Found in Orchards DQ in Vancouver WA. I did not wash the plastic, so they should of been able to know it had DQ ice cream on it. They are calling me a lair. And I am not. Our family has always loved and enjoyed the cake's for years. But this makes me afraid to have another bite.

I had gone to Dairy Queen in July 2007, in Pembroke Ontario... this past summer, ordered a ice cream cake, as I had done the past year, and specifically told them the way I wanted it, I made sure twice that she understood that it was my son's 8th birthday and he wanted the movie cars Theme, so that is what I asked for, I mentioned that we want strawberry cheese cake with Happy Birthday to Joshua on it with a picture of (LIGHTNING McQUEEN). She said she knew exactly what I wanted, so I agreed to pick it up the following week.

When I picked it up, I didn't think to look at it because like I had said, I was in the year before and got a spiderman theme cake and it was great"

When I got home, I put it in the freezer right away. The following day was the birthday party, we did all activities first then ate, I then took out the cake and I was so angry, it said... "HAPPY BIRTHDAY... that is it, no name and no lightning mcqueen. My son was so upset, I called right away to the Dairy Queen that made it, explained it to them, and I was told to come in on Monday. Keeping in mind that I live 25 minutes from Pembroke in the country, when I got there no one knew that I was coming, they told me that the manager would call me in a couple of days, NO PHONE CALL... so I went in again and explained it all over again, and they said that the manager must have forgot to call me, well at this point, I am so furious, its costly in gas to travel back and forth, so I ended up calling the next day, the manager was busy and said that she would return my call later that day... Well, its now September /07, and still no phone call, I am very disappointed that Dairy Queen has become a very unreliable establishment, I will be contacting Browns Beat in Ottawa for them to publish something in the citizen newspaper about this, they could have at least refunded my money, how hard would have that been, my son's birthday was ruined for him, he was upset that his cake wasn't what he wanted, I will never get over this, unless they can call me and offer a cake for Joshua to make up for it, other than that, I am very dis-appointed with their company...