What this couple did to persuade Dairy Queen to let them open a restaurant in Goddard
Back when Jeff and Jana Pinney first decided they’d like to open some Dairy Queen stores in the Wichita area, they hoped to start in Goddard.
They thought a store would work there, but the Dairy Queen corporate office wasn’t so sure. They told the Pinneys that the area didn’t meet their qualifications.
So in 2015, the couple opened a DQ Grill & Chill at 3820 N. Maize Road instead. They followed that one up earlier this year with another new DQ Grill & Chill at 7777 W. Maple, in front of Target.
But they never gave up on Goddard and continued applying for a contract every year.
Now their persistence is being rewarded. Dairy Queen has agreed to allow the couple to open a DQ Grill & Chill in Goddard, right in front of the Walmart and next to the Murphy USA gas station at 183rd West and Kellogg. Crews with Accel Construction were scheduled to break ground this week, and the store should be open before the end of the year, Jeff said.
How did the couple persuade Dairy Queen to change its position on Goddard?
Jeff said they parked their cars outside the Taco Bell, McDonald’s and Sonic restaurants that operate just to the west of their proposed location and counted cars going into the restaurants.
The Pinneys counted almost double the traffic they were getting at their restaurant in Maize, and at the time, it was the busiest Dairy Queen in Kansas, Jeff said.
He shared his findings with the corporate office, and he later learned that they sent their own people to count cars, too.
The next thing he knew, Goddard was approved.
But he’s excited about the possibilities for the Goddard DQ and all the traffic it could bring from smaller surrounding communities.
“It’s not just going to be a Goddard DQ,” he said. “It’s going to be a Goddard and Cheney and Garden Plain DQ. It’s going to be their DQ, too.”
This story was originally published August 13, 2018 at 5:46 PM.