Quality is king at Wichita's oldest Dairy Queen franchise

It takes just one try to realize that making a classic Dairy Queen soft-serve ice cream cone — with its voluptuous bulges and elegant curlicue on top — is a lot harder than it looks.

That's why some of Richard Barrett's employees may be on the job a month before they hand their first cone to a customer through the window at Barrett's Dairy Queen at Lincoln and Grove.

"They keep going and going and suddenly they get it," Barrett said this week.

Making sure everything looks and tastes just right is one way Barrett has managed to stay in business when similar DQ franchises have closed. Not only is it the city's oldest DQ franchise, Barrett said it's the last of the original designs in south-central Kansas.

Nicknamed "The Little Dairy Queen" by customers, the 600-square-foot cement-block store was built in 1951.

"It hasn't changed a lot since then," Barrett said. Customers still line up on the sidewalk outside to place and receive their orders through a window — though in the current heat wave many prefer to use the drive-through window that was added in the late '60s or early '70s. The original wooden walk-in cooler is still in use.

Barrett bought the business in 1987. He'd owned another DQ, at Maple and Sycamore, but closed that one a few years after buying the location on Lincoln.

Through the years, the city's other DQ franchises either went out of business or converted to "Grill and Chill" restaurants serving hot food as well as ice cream.

Asked why he never took the latter route, Barrett said, "I guess I never liked to cook food."

Interestingly, Barrett said the Dairy Queen corporation, which was bought in 1997 by famed Omaha investor Warren Buffett, is bringing back smaller stores because they are less expensive to build.

Barrett has employed hundreds of teenagers through the years, scrutinizing their grade-point averages and extracurricular activities before giving them a job.

"That tells me they're responsible," he said. "You've got to be responsible to do this job."

His manager, 24-year-old Emily Gregory, has worked for him since she was 16. She said the job was a great fit as she earned a business degree at Wichita State because Barrett closes during the winter months, letting her focus on studies.

Asked if she could see herself owning a DQ franchise, Gregory said, "It's a lot more work than people realize."

There's maintenance on the old building. Gregory helped Barrett put in new tile over the winter. There's quality control. On Tuesday, Barrett was headed to the supermarket to replace bananas that were wilting in the heat. He buys the store's nuts at Nifty Nut House. When employees get a free moment, they're often making ice cream sandwiches or Dilly Bars for the freezer case (which Barrett and Gregory say are much tastier than the mass-produced ones they also sell).

Then there's the tricky business of teaching new employees the art of the cone.

"Don't pull up or down," Gregory said, describing the correct technique. "Let the ice cream push your hand down. You just stop your hand to make a bulge."

In any case, it's the DQ "Blizzard" — ice cream blended with toppings — that has been the store's biggest seller for years. The Little Dairy Queen sold 550 of them one day last week during a fundraiser for the Children's Miracle Network. A new mini Blizzard "is selling like hotcakes," Gregory said. "People think they're cute."

Surprisingly, Barrett said 100-degree days aren't necessarily a boon for his business — at least not during daylight hours, when people apparently feel it's too hot even for ice cream.

But when the sun goes down, a line of cars can usually be found snaking around the parking lot of The Little Dairy Queen, waiting for Barrett or one of his employees to hand over the perfect soft-serve cone.

This story was originally published August 12, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Quality is king at Wichita's oldest Dairy Queen franchise."