At long last, Brandon has itself a full out DQ restaurant.
First announced last summer, construction on the Corral Centre building began in July and took a little over seven months start to finish to get to the point of this morning’s 10:30am opening. Over that time folks periodically took to the attached discussion thread to learn about progress and share their thoughts on the oncoming addition to the local fast food scene.
The idea of a DQ that serves burgers, chicken and traditional fast food staples alongside ice cream isn’t necessarily unique, with Neepawa having had such a store less than an hour away for many years. The concept had been held back from the Wheat City as Brandonites made use of the franchise’s 18th St and Park Ave location as a community tradition and often made a point of getting a DQ fix from the likes of Bottineau or Portage la Prairie. End result is a unique kind of anticipation that’s likely to manifest itself over the coming weeks and beyond.
According to a post by local franchisee Laird Lidster on the eBrandon forums, today's opening is seen as a "soft opening" with a more official Grand Opening scheduled for Saturday.
While a lot of folks will be focused on the food, another topic of interest is bound to be the presence of a drivethru in the middle of a parking lot that can be quite unpredictable at peak shopping times. Time will tell how that dynamic will play out, though the opening days and even weeks of a new restaurant might not be the best example of drivethru usage.
The food portion DQ Grill and Chill’s menu can be seen at:
https://www.dairyqueen.com/ca-en/Menu/Food/?localechange=1