When Dairy Queen’s manager Lynne Hallgren is asked what she’ll take home with her on her final day of work at her soft-serve ice cream wonderland, she says, “memories.” And maybe a dipped cone; maybe.
“I’ve had a lot of ice cream over the years,” chuckled Hallgren, whose shop shut its doors permanently at the corner of Buswell and Anderson roads Monday evening.
Hallgren will move her team to the retail corner at No. 3 and Francis roads, where DQ will set up shop in what used to be the Jenny Craig offices by the end of May.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” quipped Hallgren, who has worked at Dairy Queen for the past 37 years, becoming a staple to regular locals, who are disappointed they’re losing their place to score “hot eats and cool treats,” not to mention a cup of coffee.
“All my customers are so great. We’re like a little family. There’s Daniel the six-piece chicken strips guy and Murray, the litre-of-chocolate-ice-cream guy. There’s so many people who come in here who we consider our Dairy Queen family,” she said.
The Richmond News had, evidently, just missed Murray, a retired computer technician. “He comes here most days, everyone knows him; he knows us. It’s his social time. He could stay here all day long.”
He always has a litre of chocolate ice cream. So we set two aside for him today for free,” said Hallgren.
She’s been telling her loyal customers — those who can’t venture that far — to give her a call at the new location if they need an ice cream fix, as she lives in the area and can pop by for a friendly delivery on her way home.
Hallgren said customers and job flexibility has kept her going all these years, not to mention watching her teenage trainees blossom into university students to eventually raise families of their own.
“We have always had groups of teenagers every year. From Richmond High we always had a certain group every year. So now they come back and they have kids. And people have gone into labour here and those kids have grown up and they’re having kids, so it’s great,” said Hallgren, who said she’s always proud to have “drama-free” staff.
“We’ve had a pretty good run,” she said.
Hallgren recalled all the changes around her. “When you’re here every day you go with the flow. Now its getting kind of crazy, everything’s going down . . . There was a lot of character,” she said.
Hallgren said she heard the Dairy Queen in Steveston will close its doors for redevelopment around June. She isn’t sure if the closures will overlap, but, if they do, Richmond may face a soft serve Blizzard and ice cream cake crisis, of sorts.
The developer of Minato Village, at No. 1 Road and Steveston Highway, will reopen the Dairy Queen once the new buildings are developed by next year, leaving Hallgren as the go-to option for this summer.
