Short answer: The dairy queen menu history starts on June 22, 1940, in Joliet, Illinois, with a tiny menu: soft-serve cones for 5 cents, sundaes for 8 cents, and ice cream by the pint and quart. That is all it sold. Over 85 years the menu grew into burgers, chicken strips, cakes, and the Blizzard, which sold more than 100 million units in its first year in 1985.

On this page: the 1940 first menu, the era-by-era timeline, the 1970s menus fans photograph, the Blizzard story, the discontinued items fans still miss, and FAQs.

The Quick Numbers

Fact	Number
First store opened	June 22, 1940, Joliet, Illinois
First cone price	5 cents
First sundae price	8 cents
Soft-serve test sales	1,600 servings in 2 hours (1938)
Stores by 1955	2,600
Blizzard first-year sales	100 million plus (1985)
Locations today	7,000 plus, in 20 plus countries
Years on the menu	85 plus

The First Dairy Queen Menu (1940)

Before Blizzards, burgers, and Dilly Bars, the original Dairy Queen served just three things. A Taste of Home piece from July 2026 puts it plainly: “Before Blizzards, burgers and Dilly Bars, the original Dairy Queen served just three items. Here’s what was on the very first menu in 1940.”

That is the whole menu. No burgers. No shakes. No candy mix-ins. Just soft serve, three ways. The idea was new: ice cream that was soft, not rock hard, served fast from a machine. The founders called the cow “the queen of the dairy business,” and the name Dairy Queen came from that line.

Is the first Dairy Queen still open?

No. The first store stood at 501 North Chicago Street in Joliet, Illinois, along historic Route 66. It closed in the 1950s. The building is now a city-designated landmark, and the Joliet Area Historical Museum acquired the property in 2023 to restore it as a heritage site. You can visit the site and see the plaque, but you cannot buy a cone there.

If you want the oldest DQ feeling, head to Moorhead, Minnesota. Its 1949 store is preserved as a piece of early DQ history, and Moorhead is also where the Dilly Bar was born.

How Soft Serve Started (1938)

The story starts two years before the first store. In 1938, J.F. McCullough and his son Alex invented a softer ice cream. They convinced their friend Sherb Noble, who owned an ice cream shop in Kankakee, Illinois, to test it. At an all-you-can-eat sale, Noble served more than 1,600 servings in just two hours. The product sold itself.

Noble and the McCulloughs opened the first Dairy Queen store on June 22, 1940, in Joliet. Within a year there were 10 stores. By 1947 there were 100. By 1950 there were 1,446. By 1955 there were 2,600 across the country. No fast food chain had grown that fast before, because the franchise system itself was new: local owners, one brand, one product.

The Timeline: Every Era of the DQ Menu

1940s: Soft serve only, then shakes

• 1940: First store opens in Joliet. Menu is cones, sundaes, pints, quarts.
• 1949: Malts and shakes join the menu. Some sources say 1950. The year is fuzzy, but the order is not: shakes came second, almost a decade after the cone.

1950s: Banana splits, Dilly Bars, and Canada

• 1951: Banana splits arrive.
• 1953: The first standalone Canadian store opens in Estevan, Saskatchewan. A quick-freeze plant in Melville, Saskatchewan, had sold DQ a year earlier, in 1952.
• 1955: The Dilly Bar launches nationally. It was born in Moorhead, Minnesota, where a supplier and a store owner shaped the round chocolate-covered bar on a stick. Fans still argue about the name, but the old story holds: someone said “Isn’t that a dilly?” and the name stuck.
• 1957 to 1958: The Brazier system launches. Hot food joins the menu: burgers and hot dogs cooked on a brazier, which is an open grill. The reason was simple: ice cream sales drop in winter, and hot food keeps stores alive in cold months.

1960s: Slush, Buster Bars, and the Brazier name

• 1961: The Mr. Misty slush drink joins the menu. Fans still call it Mister Misty in old threads.
• 1960s: The Buster Bar arrives. Some histories date it to 1962. DQ’s own timeline lists 1968. The honest answer is the 1960s, and the bar itself never changed: chocolate-covered peanut and fudge bar on a stick.
• Late 1960s: The Brazier name spreads. A fan explaining the 1976 menu wrote: “When they added food to the menu in the late ’60s they added the Brazier part cos the burgers are cooked on a brazier.” That is why older stores say “Dairy Queen Brazier” on the sign.

1970s: The menus fans photograph

The 1970s menus are the ones fans post photos of today, and the memories are vivid:

• 1973 Texas menu: Queenburgers, ham sandwiches, fish sandwiches, corn dogs, chocolate-covered frozen bananas, Jiffy Burgers, Misty Slushies. One Texas worker remembered: “We made all the ice cream novelties such as ice cream sandwiches, Dilly Bars, Buster Bars and chocolate covered frozen bananas.”
• 1975 usual order: “My usual go-to was the foot long loaded hotdog with fries and a chocolate shake.” Another fan’s order: “A Brazier Burger, lime Mister Misty and onion rings. And, they had the NFL helmets for sundaes.”
• 1976 menu: Burgers cooked over open flames. Fans write: “They actually cooked the burgers over open flames.”

The 1970s DQ was a burger joint that also sold ice cream, not an ice cream shop that also sold burgers. That balance flipped later, when the Blizzard took over.

1980s: The Full Meal Deal and the Blizzard

• 1980: The Full Meal Deal launches: a burger, fries, a sundae, and a drink for $2.79. Value meals were new then, and DQ was early to them.
• 1985: The Blizzard launches nationally. It changed everything. More than 100 million Blizzards sold in the first year. Fans in a GenX thread remembered it exactly: “We went absolutely batty over those. I still remember my usual: Cookie dough and peanut butter.”
• 1987: DQ’s parent company buys the Orange Julius chain. Julius drinks join select DQ locations after that.
• 1988: The Blizzard flip becomes legend. Workers flip the cup upside down before handing it over. It is a quality test: if the Blizzard is thick enough, it stays in the cup. The science fans cite is overrun, the air whipped into the mix, at around 40%. One ex-worker wrote that in 10 months on the job, only one Blizzard ever fell, and that cup was double-cupped because the blender tears the cup.

What was the first original Blizzard flavor?

Fans ask this constantly: “What was the first original Blizzard flavor at Dairy Queen? Was it the Oreo Blizzard?” The top answer on Quora is honest: “The first blizzards at Dairy Queen were originally just thick milkshakes in your typical milkshake flavors.” There was no single first flavor. The launch Blizzards were thick shakes in standard flavors with candy mixed in. OREO became the signature later, and it has stayed the best-seller ever since.

1990s: Chicken, pizza, and value

• 1992: Super Value Meals arrive, with homestyle burgers and basket meals.
• 1995: The Chicken Strip Basket debuts, and so does the DQ Treatzza Pizza. The basket stayed and became a signature. The pizza did not.
• 1998: Berkshire Hathaway buys DQ’s parent company. DQ has been part of Berkshire ever since.

2000s: Grill and Chill, and the Blizzard of the Month

• 2001: The first DQ Grill and Chill opens in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Bigger stores, full dining rooms, a revamped hot food menu.
• 2003: The Blizzard of the Month program starts. One featured flavor each month, which is why fans now track the monthly calendar.
• 2005: GrillBurgers roll out nationwide.

2010s to today: Small sizes, apps, and plant-based

• 2010: Mini Blizzards join the menu.
• 2018: The official DQ Mobile App launches, with digital ordering and deals.
• 2020: The Non-Dairy Dilly Bar arrives, made with coconut cream. It is still the only truly dairy-free novelty at DQ.

The Discontinued Items Fans Still Miss

Every DQ fan has a lost favorite. Here are the ones with real history behind them:

Why do seasonal items vanish?

The Nerds Blizzard question gets the same answer every time, and it explains all seasonal items: “A ton of our blizzards are seasonal and they only make enough ingredients (and supply that much) to last each store a month or few.” Flavors do not die. They run out. If enough fans ask, some come back. Mint OREO came back in 2019 and again in 2026. Pumpkin Pie returns every fall.

The cherry dip myth

One Quora thread asked why DQ discontinued the cherry dip. The top answer, from an owner of 13 stores, was blunt: “They didn’t. All of our stores still carry it. 1 store not carrying it doesn’t mean it was discontinued.” This is the golden rule of DQ history: one store’s menu is not the chain’s menu. Always check your store before mourning an item.

How the Hot Food Menu Changed

A fan who left DQ in 2003 asked how much the hot food menu had changed. The answer, from a worker of three years, named the deluxe burger in the $5 Buck Lunch box special. The pattern across decades is steady:

• 1950s: No hot food at all.
• 1960s: Brazier burgers, hot dogs, fries. Winter survival food.
• 1970s: Foot-long hot dogs, Queenburgers, fish sandwiches, corn dogs, open-flame burgers.
• 1980s: Value meals bundle the food.
• 1990s: Chicken strips and basket meals take over.
• 2000s: Grill and Chill makes hot food half the store.
• Today: Stackburgers, chicken strips, and the $7 Meal Deal carry the food side.

The ice cream never left. The food grew around it.

Why Fans Love Old DQ Menus

Retro menu threads run on one game: “Order TWO items from this historic menu.” Fans pick their 1955 order, their 1973 order, their 1976 order. The picks repeat: a foot-long hot dog, a Brazier Burger, onion rings, a lime Mister Misty, a chocolate shake, a Dilly Bar, a dipped cone. The cheapest items win the most love, because old DQ was cheap: a nickel cone, an 8-cent sundae, a $2.79 full meal.

That is also why this page exists. The menu is the history. Every item on today’s menu arrived in some decade for some reason, and most of them are still orderable. A fan who wants a 1975 order can still get most of it: a burger, onion rings, a chocolate shake, a Dilly Bar. The prices changed. The menu did not change as much as people think.

Keep exploring

• Secret Menu
• Texas Menu
• Blizzard Flavors

FAQs About Dairy Queen Menu History

When did Dairy Queen start?

Dairy Queen started on June 22, 1940, with the first store in Joliet, Illinois. Soft serve itself was invented in 1938 and tested in Kankakee, Illinois, where it sold 1,600 servings in two hours.

What was on the first Dairy Queen menu?

Three things: soft-serve cones for 5 cents, sundaes for 8 cents in chocolate, strawberry, or pineapple, and ice cream by the pint and quart to take home.

Is the first Dairy Queen still open?

No. The Joliet store at 501 North Chicago Street closed in the 1950s. The building is a city-designated landmark, and the Joliet Area Historical Museum acquired it in 2023.

When did the Blizzard come out?

The Blizzard launched nationally in 1985 and sold more than 100 million units in its first year.

What was the first Blizzard flavor?

There was no single first flavor. The first Blizzards were thick milkshakes in standard flavors with candy mixed in. OREO became the signature flavor later.

Why do workers flip Blizzards upside down?

It is a quality test. A properly thick Blizzard stays in the cup when flipped. The flip proves the mix has the right thickness, with air whipped in at around 40%.

Why did Dairy Queen discontinue the Nerds Blizzard?

Seasonal Blizzards end when their ingredients run out. Stores stock enough for about a month, and when it is gone, the flavor is gone until it returns.

Did Dairy Queen discontinue the cherry dip?

No, not chain-wide. Some stores carry it and some do not. One store’s menu is not the chain’s menu, so check your store.

What is the oldest Dairy Queen item still on the menu?

The soft-serve cone itself, from 1940. The Dilly Bar, from 1955, is the oldest named novelty still sold.

When did Dairy Queen add hot food?

Hot food joined in the late 1950s with the Brazier system, and spread in the late 1960s. The reason was winter: ice cream sales drop in cold months, and burgers keep stores open.

Final Thoughts

The dairy queen menu history is a story of one product that never left and everything else that grew around it. The 5-cent cone of 1940 is still on the menu, in spirit and in form, at every DQ today. The Dilly Bar from 1955, the Brazier burger from the late 1960s, the Blizzard from 1985, the Chicken Strip Basket from 1995: each decade added one thing that stayed.

The discontinued list is shorter than fans think, and the “gone forever” list is shorter still. Most lost items are seasonal, store-level, or retired novelties, not chain-wide deaths. And the order game still works: pick two items from any old menu, and you can probably still order them today. The prices will shock you. The taste will not.