What's the scoop with the Lexington Plaza Dairy Queen?
The state's oldest Dairy Queen is temporarily closed
Each year, Dairy Queen celebrates the first day of spring with Free Cone Day. But this time, when neighbors arrived at the Lexington Plaza DQ on Thursday, March 20, the shop was closed and empty. So what’s happening? Will this beloved neighborhood institution be opening this year?
The Lexington Plaza Dairy Queen was Minnesota’s first DQ when it opened in 1947—or at least, Roseville claims it as the first. Rochester also claims their 1947 Dairy Queen as the first in the state, but it went up for sale last spring and hasn’t reopened. Will Roseville’s historic DQ Treat meet the same fate?
Albert Esther, one of three co-owners of Lexington Plaza Shopping Center, is hopeful about the Dairy Queen’s prospects. Lexington Plaza owns the Dairy Queen building. Esther said the folks who were leasing it went out of business. In March, the Lexington Plaza owners worked out a deal to retake possession of the building and they’re looking for another Dairy Queen franchise holder to take it over.
“We’d like to see it continue as a Dairy Queen. We think it’s a lovely use,” Esther said. “We’ve enjoyed having Dairy Queen as a tenant.”
They’re working with leasing agent Atlas Commercial Real Estate and have already initiated talks with a franchise holder of another Dairy Queen location.
“An existing franchisee is best,” Esther said. That’s what Dairy Queen Corporate wants, he said. “You can’t have a Dairy Queen without having corporate blessing.”
In 2010, the Lexington Plaza Dairy Queen made the annual list of “10 Most Endangered Historic Places,” by the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota (now named Rethos). At the time, the Pioneer Press reported that the franchise holder Jack DeCrans was considering demolishing the historic building and replacing it with a modern Dairy Queen. He said the building was “undersized” and “not energy efficient,” the Pioneer Press reported.
Fifteen years later, the original building still stands.
“The building is antiquated compared to the Dairy Queen prototypes,” Esther said. “We had explored how we could expand that building a number of years ago. But it didn’t make sense from our standpoint to invest a lot of money into a new building.”
The owners of Lexington Plaza have no intentions of tearing the building down now either.
“We’d like to get somebody to be in it to open for summer,” Esther said.
The Dairy Queen building is located in the parking lot of the Lexington Plaza Shopping Center at 1688 Lexington Ave. N. Other retailers in that strip include Bicycle Chain, Bricks & Minifigs, Namaste Brows & Boutique, St. Paul Bagelry, The Cafe Meow, Neko Clawww, and Keys Cafe, among others.
My brother Paul and I did a custom aluminum trim job on this dairy Queen back in the 80s or maybe late 70s. We special ordered the color from Alcoa or Reynolds, Dairy Queen Red we called it. Not sure when they tore all our work off and redid it but it looks nice. It's historic. I say keep it just the way it is.
It would be a shame for it to go. All they need is some quality employment. They've always been busy!