A day at the Dairy Queen

Independent owners work through the ebb and flow of the seasons

By Deborah Neyens, correspondent

It may be a cold, drizzly morning in early spring, but Laura Coleman-Henderson is thinking about ice cream.

She makes the two-block trip between her northeast-side home and her home away from home - the Dairy Queen store she has owned for the past 24 years. Cedar Rapids's only Dairy Queen in a residential neighborhood, the shop happens to be next door to Coleman-Henderson's childhood home.

The Mound View neighborhood is quiet this time of day. The children are in school.

Traffic on 16th Street N.E., despite its direct access to Interstate 380, is minimal. Even so, Coleman-Henderson expects her first customer within 15 minutes of opening her walk-up window at 11 a.m.

'I have my die-hard customers who come even on cold and rainy days,” she said. 'And since I don't have a drive-through, they have to physically get out of their cars. I appreciate that.”

In the hour before she opens, Coleman-Henderson will make 170 Dilly Bars, as she does about every two days. Her production will nearly triple by summer, when she will make around 240 of the frozen treats a day, along with Buster Bars and ice cream sandwiches.

'I could order them from Dairy Queen corporate,” she said of the novelty items, 'but we make all of ours in-house.”

To make Dilly Bars, Coleman-Henderson dispenses soft serve vanilla ice cream into a mold and inserts a wooden stick. She removes the mold and transfers the ice cream to a deep freeze to harden.

Later, when she has a break between customers, she will dip the frozen treat into warmed chocolate and place it back in the freezer to create its hard chocolate shell.

With no food menu, Coleman-Henderson has no lunch rush. Business will pick up between 2:30 and 5 p.m., when school gets out and people get off work, and again between 7 and 8:30 p.m., after dinner.

One of her seven employees will be in to help her at 3, and her husband will stop by to relieve her when he can.

It's been a slow spring, Coleman-Henderson said.

'We didn't open until Feb. 25, which is a week later than normal, because of the cold weather,” she recalled.

An influx of visitors to the nearby Irish District for March events such as the Bar to Bar 5K and St. Patrick's Day created temporary spikes in business - 'People like mint Dilly Bars and Mint Oreo Blizzards around St. Patrick's Day,” she noted - but things won't get really hectic until school lets out for the summer.

'There will be a steady stream of kid traffic all throughout the day,” she said.

When that time comes, she more hours for her employees, up her weekly orders and increase her own time spent at the store.

As the days grow longer and warmer, sales of currently popular hot fudge sundaes will decrease as customers opt for summertime favorites such as strawberry shortcake, banana splits and slush drinks, Coleman-Henderson predicted. Blizzards are and will remain top-sellers until the store closes for the winter, shortly before Halloween.

In her 24 years in business, Coleman-Henderson has seen some ups and downs with the neighborhood she serves. Her business was affected when the Terex plant shut down in 2010 and again when Polk Elementary School closed in 2012.

But she believes business is on an upward trend. She is drawing customers from companies at the Shores Building down the street and from nearby Coe College and Mount Mercy University.

'A lot of people stop by after they get their hair done at one of the salons,” she said. 'And it's great to be nestled between the schools.”

Neighborhood staple

Across town on Johnson Avenue N.W., Jerry Cada finds time for a short break after lunch at the Dairy Queen restaurant he and his wife have owned for 11 years.

Lunch typically is a busy time at the full-food operation, with a brief lull before things pick up again when school gets out. The busiest time of day is after 7 p.m., when Cada does 50 percent of his business.

'We'll have people out for dinner or an after-dinner treat. The drive-through will be backed up. We'll have two or three Little League teams in here some nights in the spring,” he said.

Although business at the year-round restaurant increased in March, it was a slow winter.

'It was the toughest winter we've had since we owned the store,” Cada admitted. 'Sales were down considerably in December and January, and even in February.”

With a current staff of 22, Cada is in the process of hiring eight to 10 additional employees in anticipation of the busy summer months.

'We're pretty fortunate to have a lot of good kids working for us,” he says. 'We generally don't lose them until they graduate. And they get their friends to work for us.”

Cada has worked full-time at the restaurant since retiring from Alliant Energy a few years ago. He likes to work the grill, while his employees work the registers and drive-through and prepare orders.

As with Coleman-Henderson, Cada produces novelty items in-house. The store also sells cakes, and Cada anticipates big cakes sales in the coming months - Father's Day and Mother's Day typically are the two biggest cake-selling days of the year.

Cada's biggest challenge is maintaining his 50-year-old facility. The restaurant was built in the 1960s, with a drive-through added about 20 years ago.

Cada uses the slow winter months to perform repairs, so things keep working all summer. His customers are counting on it.

'We've been a staple in the neighborhood for many years,” he said.

Linn County has six other full-service Dairy Queen restaurants such as Cada's and three other seasonal treat centers similar to Coleman-Henderson's. They are all independently owned and operated.