Dairy Queen Grill & Chill — Restaurant in Garden City

I’ve visited this location twice thinking one poor experience must have been a fluke. But today’s visit was worse than the first.

DIRTY: the building is older which isn’t a problem, but it’s not clean and tidy. Especially in the COVID context, I would expect extra effort to be applied to cleanliness. I imagine a really busy store may have difficulty staying on top of cleaning, but this location had 4 different workers that I encountered and I was the only person in the store.

SLOW: last visit, I tried the drive through and it took more than 20 minutes even though the line was not long. Today, despite 4 workers, the visit took a long time due to nobody jumping at the opportunity to make a blizzard. They were all standing around and then I asked if the blizzard was ready and one person finally stepped forward to make it.

LACK OF TRAINING/KNOWLEDGE: the 2 individuals taking orders and making blizzards did not know the DQ product. I asked questions about the cakes, treat pizzas, blizzards, and cheese curds. They didn’t know anything. They didn’t know ingredients, how long to set out to defrost, how to ring up items, if they were precut, etc. Maybe it was both associates’ first day, but they were not taking steps to learn and were in NO HURRY either. They were unfamiliar with ingredients, and made the wrong blizzards and they had to be remade.

CUSTOMER SERVICE PROBLEMS: at the end of all this, I received a cheese curd order that was obviously underserved. The container was about 60% full, and they were apologizing for the wait at this point. I had spent $50 and was quite disappointed in the experience so I asked if I could have a second order complimentary to wrap this whole thing up with a bow. They declined, all the way to the assumed manager. An embarrassed manager from another store who was picking up product, apologized in the parking lot and said he most certainly would have comp’ed a $3 order to try and make it right. That would have been the least he could do!

Disappointment on multiple fronts, not sure if I’ll return to this location. Maybe third...

Last night, while taking some family portraits in the nearby park, my son was attacked by bees (just bites, no stings). To help “ease his pain,” I gave him the choice of ice cream at either Sonic or Dairy Queen. He chose DQ—big mistake. . . After struggling to understand the mush mouth on the drive-through speaker, a DQ employee hands me a slopped together cup of ice cream and whipped cream. It’s dripping and oozing out the sides, and there’s no way you can hold it without getting yourself filthy sticky . . . Naturally, I want a new (clean) one. But the employee leaves me holding it out my vehicle window for nearly 10 minutes. When he re-appears, he must have forgot I was still there because he began trying to give me the order for the car behind me, seems “stunned” I want a new order, and then says I need to wait at least another 10 minutes while they defrost the hot dog I ordered . . . I snapped, demanded a new ice cream, and my money back. He gave me both, and a manager never appeared to see if there was a fix . . . Run, don’t walk, past this DQ and hit the Sonic that’s just...

Updated review* 7 July 2018 - Yes, I originally had a lame experience, but the general manager took the time to mail me a letter of apology explaining that there must have been some confusion because they began accepting the app on the day I originally visited. He also invited me back. I know mistakes happen, so I love it when the company owns the mistake and goes over and above to make things right! Thankful that I can use my app at this location, as is it conveniently located near me. Props to this manager for following up!!

Original review *If I could leave zero stars, I would!!! I just downloaded the new app today and was so excited to use my free blizzard. I placed my order, went to redeem my freebie and then she tells me I can't use my phone app cause they don't have the technology to use it. So, I lost my free blizzard and they did nothing to make it right!!!! Terrible customer service and lame that their system is so out of date that you can't even use the company's site!!! You gotta have better customer service than this if you want people to ever visit your...