Sunday, July 13, 2008

Highland Park-Ford Parkway - $1.69 sm cone

This DQ Grill and Chill is pretty new. It used to be a really skanky Burger King where I once got sick off a bad Whopper Jr. Now, it is a beautiful Dairy Queen store. It even has a flat screen TV showing the baseball game. They have the Orange Julius here, too. Plenty of indoor and outdoor seating, and it has a drive-thru. Off to a good start, but then they stumble.

The place where you order, and the place where you pick up your order is, basically, the same corner of the restaurant. People stand around wondering if they are in line or if they are hanging out with the people waiting for their orders. A simple velvet rope to keep people to one side when they come in would help.

Also, the kitchen seemed too small for the number of people in it. They should do something about that, too.

Small vanilla cone: $1.69
medium: $2.19
Large: $2.59
Peanut Buster Parfait: $4.19
Chocolate soft serve? Yes
Aggregate Cost: $10.66 

Cone size was average--just like the picture on the wall of the small cone, actually. Fine. I'll accept an average cone, but the whole idea behind this blog is to find the best deals. Highland Park DQ is not it.

The cone had good flavor, nicely balanced between icy and marshmellowy. When I finished eating I felt it was a satisfying cone experience.

What I suggest you do when here, and every DQ, is see if they have the 2for$3/3 for $4/4 for $5 meal specials, which are great if you are making your own combo meal, but even better if two or more of you are there for an ice cream cone.

I forgot to get the price of the small chocolate dipped cone, but I am sure it was at least $2.09. With the 2 for $3 special, you can save over $.50 on each cone.

1 comment:

andrew honigman said...

I don't know about the whole DQ-Orange Julius combination. That seems like a bad sign right off the bat. First of all, Julius has this sort of "healthy" cachet that makes you feel bad about getting a DQ treat. But even worse than that is the "loser" vibe that Julius has. How come you never see a stand-alone Orange Julius anymore? Because it is dumb and nobody likes it. It's just dragging DQ down. That's why everything was all messed up at Highland Park. If they didn't have to spend all their time defending their dubious association with Orange Julius they would have that velvet rope and more space in the kitchen.