Call it “Larrytown,” “LoBuPa,” “Satan’s Hollow,” whatever you like, the people of these neighborhoods love their soft serve and its associated mix-ins. Despite no indoor dining area, the Packard Road DQ opens at the end of February and stays open until usually at least Thanksgiving, maybe later if the UM-OSU game is at home that year.
(Above, the Packard DQ with original signage as Googlemapp’d in 2016.)
It opened February 28 with the same sign, but sometime in the past few weeks, the logo-cone came down and they crammed both the mid-2000s “DQ swooshes” and a “Dairy Queen” bar sign into that white section on the front of the building:
As roadside photo blogger Debra Jane Seltzer notes:
In the last couple of years, Dairy Queen corporate has been very actively going after their franchisees to replace their vintage signs with the ugly new swoosh DQ logo. They are also demanding building replacements as well. With all the costs to be paid by the franchisee. There have been many threats and a number of losses.
I know logos take a lot of time and thought, and each little element means a thing (for example, the blue swoosh means frozen novelties and the orange swoosh means grill items like hot dogs and burgers), but c’mon, son. You made the franchisee pay for two signs for that little store and just crammed them on the front. They’re not even centered. (The DQ stand in downtown Dexter, of similar proportions, has a similar signage job on the front.)
BOOOOOOOOOOO
The same red icon with less information. (And the ugly swooshes.) Apparently corporate does not have enough faith that people know what “DQ” means on its own, despite that being their new logo.
I’ll bet actual customers prefer the old one. If corporate bothered to ask. Do updated logos bring in new customers?
There was one once. Like “oh this place looks fresh now, I better check it out.” I can’t remember what it was for.
On the other hand, I liked Tropicana’s 2009 redesign and have largely avoided their products since they reverted to their 80s packaging: https://www.fastcompany.com/1179702/never-mind-pepsi-pulls-much-loathed-tropicana-packaging