Dairy Queen needs an upgrade...bad.

The evolution of the fro-yo craze and the self serve concept has now put Dairy Queen in this situation.

Especially the ice-cream-only places which ocasionally serves hot dogs (and perhaps sometimes hamburgers), this business model is getting real old.  Sure they've got blizzards, but the blizz of the month deal of them makes me think that their business is still stuck in the 80s.  Basically, it's some different type of blizzards, sundaes, cones, banana splits, and brownie sundaes, with only one flavor of ice cream...vanilla.  SOME areas offer chocolate, but that's it.  Mom and pop stores sell MANY flavers of soft serve ice cream.  I mean, many ice cream stands around can offer something that's more premium than the DQ's blizzards and sundaes.  Kimball farms in my area serves 50 different flavers of hard scooped ice cream, and I can customize my own banana split by choosing three flavers of ice cream and my own toppings.  So, why Dairy Queen with only one (maybe two) base flavors of ice cream?  I don't know, but the emergance of the frozen yogurt where consumers can go up to the machine and dispense themselves their own yogurt (though, I may still go to TCBY and get a shiver or a banana split there, even though TCBY is going to the self-serve route).

But one thing I do admit that if Dairy Queen decides to go to the self serve route and widen up the base flavers of ice cream (at least add chocolate, coffee, and strawberry to the widely used vanilla ice cream) and mix in your own toppings, they could keep the classic treats there as a full serve, so that the new generation can create their own sundaes, while the older generation who are used to the blizzards can still have the blizzards.

So, of course, my design is this: a self serve part containing a chocolate, vanilla, coffee, strawberry, and even two seasonal flavers of ice cream, along with the topings, dips, and hot fudge.  Add a mixing, so that customers can fill up a blizzard cup with the ice creams and the ingrediants they one and create their own blizzards!  Yo-ho, how about my very own white chocolate chip reverse blizzard, or a banana split blizzard...  Also, have hard scooped ice cream.  I know that Dairy Queen doesn't want to include hard scooped ice cream, but they need to add it.  TCBY has been doing hard scooped frozen yogurt SINCE THE BEGINNING, and it's certainally going to kill Dairy Queen if Dairy Queen doesn't start serving hard scooped ice cream.

While they have the self serve ice cream, they can retain the full-serve counter, so that long time Dairy Queen customers can still have the favorite blizzards or the hot fudge sundaes they had.  The burgers, fries, and hot foods can also be served at the front counter.  However, the counter can be used to weigh the self serve cups that customers get and be paid by the ounce.

Is this going to also make McDonald's, KFC, and other fast food places obsolete?  perhaps, but the self serve frozen yogurt craze is starting to make Dairy Queen look old and crusty and need of a transformation.