Dairy Queen Grill & Chill — Restaurant in Washington

This DQ used to be one of my go-to spots. After today's experience of a rude employee with undersized portions, I'll be looking for a new place to get burgers and shakes.

We stopped in for lunch today and ordered 4 Blizzards along with some other food. Gary rang up our order- and he was very nice. When our Blizzards were served, they were ALL underfilled. Two were underfilled by a full inch, and two were underfilled by about 3/4 of an inch. I've been a big fan of DQ since the early 80s and I've been ordering Blizzards for many years. Today is the first day that we had a Blizzard that was underfilled- and ALL 4 of them were underfilled.

We mentioned that the Blizzards were underfilled to our cashier and he turned to ask another employee (who had a tattoo on her neck) how to fix the issue. The employee with a tattoo on her neck told the cashier that the Blizzards were perfect the way they were, but each one was noticeably underfilled. I could tell that the cashier wanted to help us, but the lady with the tattoo on her neck was wearing a tag that said "supervisor" and she kept insisting that it was a normal business practice of the Silverdale DQ to underfill Blizzards. When I politely asked if she could top them off to the proper portion, she flat-out refused and kept insisting that they were “perfect” as-is—while being openly rude about it.

What makes this worse is that I recently saw another review calling out the exact same employee for being rude, complete with a photo. I didn't take the photo of the employee. I just copied it from the other review. Clearly management was made aware of the issue, yet nothing was done. If multiple customers are reporting the same negative experience with the same person, that’s a management failure.

Does the owner of this franchise know that staff is chasing customers away with rude treatment and charging them for something that they aren't receiving? Or, has DQ corporate begun to encourage franchisees to reduce portion sizes to increase profits? Maybe that's DQ's version of "shrinkflation?"

A Blizzard isn’t cheap, and honestly- shorting the customer on an ounce per Blizzard might net the DQ location an extra 50 cents per Blizzard based on saved food cost. But is it worth it to lose a customer over that? We paid more than $47 for our meal, and it's reasonable to expect to receive $47 worth of food. More importantly, a customer should be treated with basic respect. If management isn’t willing to retrain staff or hold them accountable, then customers will take their business elsewhere. Sadly, that’s...

I truly never leave reviews unless they are positive in nature, because I am a big believer in giving people the benefit of the doubt on their bad days, but I couldn’t go without leaving this review. I am truly saddened to say that this afternoon, I received the most rude service I have ever received in my entire life on such a sensitive and hard day. I pulled up to the drive thru and was greeted kindly with a “hey welcome to Dairy Queen, order whenever you’re ready” I said thank you and proceeded to order a chocolate dipped cone for my son who just had surgery this morning and requested Dairy Queen as soon as he was feeling better and ready to eat. After ordering the cone, the woman responded, very rudely, “what size?” I responded, “oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize there were different sized cones, I’ll get a small. And can I get it upside down in a cup, please?” She responded, “you want a vanilla and chocolate dipped cone upside down in cups?” I said, “not a plain vanilla, just the chocolate dipped please.” I thought maybe she interpreted that I asked for a vanilla and a chocolate dipped, because that’s how she spoke it back to me. She responded in the most disgusting tone, “uhh, that’s what I JUST said.” In shock, I just said “okay.” And as I was about to order something for my daughter, she cut me off by continuing in her nasty tone “pull up for your total.” Instead of continuing to interact with this person, I decided to just pull up and pay for the cone and go elsewhere for ice cream for the rest of my family. I pulled forward, paid for the cone, and then drove over to Wendy’s where I was met with amazing service and ordered ice cream for the rest of my family.

Positive attitudes and kindness go a LONG way in the service industry. I can understand miscommunication can be frustrating, but the tone of our voice and the way we communicate has the power to change the course of someone’s whole day in a positive or negative manner. Our interactions with people, matter. After such a long stressful day with my 6 year old son having surgery, and all he wanted was Dairy Queen, and then to be met with such rudeness and such a negative experience, made me sick to my stomach. You never know what anyone is going through. You should always choose kindness. I hope that person sees this and changes how they speak to people coming through their drive thru. I will never return to this Dairy Queen...

Since an explanation of my rating has been requested, i will provide a review. Since 3 is a bit more than half of 5, that places 3 stars out of 5 squarely within the descriptor of "mediocre". Without coincidence, it has that in common with my experience during my recent visit, wherein my friend and i sat in the DQ dining room.

My single largest irritation was the time it took to get our food. My generally quite-patient friend even noted that others also seemed to be waiting quite a long time. Meanwhile, the drive through had a steady speed. While i know from experience that it is common practice with fast food restaurants to prioritize the speed of the drive through over the dining room, if i notice it, it irritates me, because i don't believe it is appropriate. And, coupled with the length of this particular wait, that's a 2 star rating on its own. If DQ, or any other such restaurant, has any interest in hearing some of the aforementioned reasons why prioritizing that way is inappropriate, they should contact me to discuss financial terms for my consultation.

While waiting, i observed one of the staff taking advantage of the lull in customers to clean some tables off. i also observed that she was quite slow at doing it... so much so, that i was glad i wasn't her manager. On the bright side, she had a genuine smile tempering her otherwise-seeming quite distant look. Apparently she had something on her mind that was more enjoyable than her job. Can't blame her, i suppose.

After receiving our food at our table, which was delivered by a pleasant employee, my friend had to return to the counter to get the country gravy that he had ordered.

The gravy was better than okay... good, but not amazing... a bit too peppery, but i have pretty high standards for country gravy, and i would absolutely order it again.

My burger tasted okay. The veggies seemed fresh. The beef tasted okay, but it was a thin, floppy consistency that was unappetizing. The Blizzards were great as usual. And, the fries were quite a bit better than they typically are, and were hot when served.

The staff was quite pleasant to us, but not in any particularly notable way.

So, all things considered and the experiences averaged, "mediocre" fits rather well in...