hey!  what is a road trip or for that matter life without a stop at a DQ.

for me it is more than about food. it can be a life saver.  i love them.

DQ.  some years ago it was Dairy Queen.  now it is DQ.  and its tag line is Grill & Chill.  don’t you love that?

DQ has been around 80 years, and is now in 20 countries and in 7,000 locations. 23 years ago Warren Buffet bought the fast food chain.  he obviously knew something.  DQ is not going away.

recently DQ was very important to me.  i was in Bandon, a small community on the southwest Oregon coast.  for some reason the only fast food operator in the town is DQ.  all the others have been prohibited so as not to junk up the wonderful, laid back community.  but somehow, DQ was allowed in.  i don’t know the story on how this happened but i am sure it is a good story.

the reason this particular DQ was important to me recently was that i needed to get some breakfast and get it fast.  i could not spend the time ordering something to go from a restaurant and then picking it up.  i needed something right away.

thank God for DQ, i said to myself as i drove by.

most of us do not think of DQ for breakfast.  in fact they do not have any breakfast items on their menu.  they have not followed MacDonald’s and Wendy’s and Burger King’s in offering low cost breakfasts as a way of building brand loyalty.  not DQ.

DQ in Bandon does not open until 10:30am, but i wanted breakfast.  so, what does a relatively healthy, starved American man do?  i order an Alaska Cod fish sandwich, French fries, and a Chocolate Chip Mint shake.  for breakfast!!!  yes, sir. and i loved it.

it was all i could do to muster up my strength and my will power not to order my favorite thing at DQ — that being a Blizzard.  but, given the time of day and the fact that this was my breakfast, i dug down deep into my reserve of restraint and did not order a Blizzard.

not then, but later in the day i returned to DQ and ordered my absolute favorite — a chocolate chip mint Blizzard.

one of the things i love most about DQ is that when they serve you the Blizzard, they  deliberately turn the paper cup (size depends on whether you order a small, medium or large size) upside down.  yes!  just to show you how thick and juicy the Blizzard is.  the Blizzard does not fall out of the cup when it is turned upside down.  in fact, nothing drools out of it, nothing escapes.  it is so impressive.

now, i realize there are some important issues going on in the world right now — pandemic, economic dislocation, institutional racism, Gaza Strip/Israeli conflict, etc. however, i had to take a moment to celebrate DQ and share with you what it means to me.

see this T-shirt.  i would love to have one, and i would wear it proudly.