Believe it or not, DQ actually won the “Best Burger” award in my hometown. Which should give you a fairly good indication of the quality of the cuisine.
Our local DQ makes a decent, fair priced burger but I agree with Sam Stone that their fries are near inedible. Generally I’m not a fan of soft serve ice cream and adding stuff to it doesn’t make it better. Consequently, I don’t eat their Blizzards and such.
The ice cream is delicious (my favorite thing from DQ is the peanut buster parfait) but the food (like the chicken wing basket) is nasty. I go there every now and then for a treat but never for a meal.
Chimera mentioned the Chicken Strip Combo with a choice of 8 sauces. What he didn’t mention was that one of the sauce choices is “gravy”.
When I played WoW one of my guildmates ended a raid by saying “I’m gonna go to Dairy Queen and get a big cup of gravy.”
I eat there a couple of times a month. Better burgers than Micky Ds. Highlights: onion rings, chicken strip w/ gravy, chili hot dog … oh, and onion rings.
FTR, I’m in Santa Cruz, CA.
Darned interesting post/username combo.
More to the point, I think the folks who say it’s situational are right on the money. I’m in Omaha, and one of the great traditions around here is for Berkshire Hathaway stockholders to follow Warren Buffett to the local DQ after the annual shareholders meeting. Consequently, the stores are kept in very good working order. When I lived in PA, however, I noticed a marked dropoff in quality.
shudder DQ food is loathsome. DQ makes imitations of real food, like all fast food joints, but while I crave a Big Mac a couple of times a year I can barely choke down a burger from DQ. shudder
I had friends who love it and I’ve found the chicken strips the least objectionable. They offer gravy with their strips which I think is bloody genius…you know, if the food didn’t suck shit through a tube. 
Their large steak finger basket is to die for.
I used to go to DQ for Blizzards all the time. I think the quality of their food is pretty variable compared to similar chains. I think the last time I went to a DQ was on a long road trip…in Sonora, Texas, I think. The service was lousy and the food mediocre, so I switched over to Sonic after that and haven’t been back to Dairy Queen since.
I agree Clothahump. I was very disapointed when I moved from Texas to Kansas and found that the DQs here don’t offer them. I can only get the chicken finger basket. sigh
I recall back in the day, Dairy Queens had okay food in Texas. Here in Thailand, Dairy Queens are licensed as mediocre ice-cream stands – no seating – and a couple different kinds of crappy wieners. The Blizzards are not too bad, though.
I always thought they had a better chicken strip basket than Sonic. Especially the Gravy. I haven’t eaten at one in a few years though.
My brother swears by the chicken finger basket. He’ll go out of his way to get one.
This thread is making me want one, too.
For some reason I seem to be thinking that the burger buns DQ uses are sweeter than normal burger buns, and I didn’t quite care for that. Am I remembering that right?
I like DQ hot dogs and hamburgers, although the melted cheese is nasty. The french fries are nothing special. For dessert, there’s nothing better than a Peanut Buster Parfait. Love those!
I used to love their burgers as a child, but I haven’t really had one since.
There is almost nothing finer in this world than their Root Beer Freeze, though.
I’d have to agree with this, the quality can really be all over the place. The good ones make a pretty good burger as far as big chain fast food burgers go. They’re not as good as some of the local joints or even as good as Five Guys but they’re better than all the other chains around here. I just like the burgers and onion rings though, I’ve never liked the chicken strips or steak fingers, the batter they use always tastes weird to me.
I only have been to a few Dairy Queens in Northern Jersey (Cranford, and one in the Ironbound section of Newark which has been closed for years now, and one or two other places), and I don’t remember them offering anything but ice cream and other frozen desserts (actually I do remember the Newark one having a handmade sign offering Hot Dogs, written in pen on white cardboard - not offical looking at all). These were small outlets with the red, barnlike roofs and 2 sliding windows in front where you ordered and got your frozen treats (no indoor seating). Didn’t know they were supposed to offer cooked foods like Chicken or Hamburgers…
I don’t go to DQ much, but they used to have these killer Flamethrower burgers. The commercials for these got me in the store. I need to go see if they still have these.
Our local Dairy Queen has a really unique Chicken Wrap - I’ve never tasted anything like it…I think it has spinach leaves in it. It’s not saturated in sauce so you get that unique taste. This is in Tennessee. Anyone know what I mean?
good blizards and P-nut buster parfaits, never really tried anything else.