5 Changes Happening To This Major Ice Cream Chain In 2025

Founded in 1940, Dairy Queen is one of America's oldest ice cream chains. Although some locations only serve frozen treats, most offer a full slate of typical fast food fare like burgers and fried chicken. This makes Dairy Queen a solid, all-in one choice for a quick meal plus dessert.

But a chain like Dairy Queen doesn't make it to 85 years in business, achieve 85% brand recognition, and open over 7,700 stores worldwide without evolving. And in 2025, Dairy Queen fans can expect a range of changes to hit the chain. From nearing completion of a long-term animal rights commitment to new executive leadership and exciting new menu items, many of the changes come from the top.

Other changes, however, are products of outside circumstances. This includes dozens of unexpected store closures in one of the Dairy Queen-heaviest states in the country — but also the pending reopening of an iconic location in the Pacific Northwest.

In 2016, Dairy Queen made a commitment to use 100% cage-free eggs throughout its supply chain by 2025. And Dairy Queen has made good progress on this goal, with the pledge likely to be fulfilled on time.

According to Dairy Queen's Chicken Welfare Policy, a page which was last updated in September of 2024, 76% of its egg-using products in the United States have either gone cage-free or been reformulated to exclude eggs. In Canada, this figure is 50%, and in the rest of Dairy Queen's international footprint, it's 60%. Dairy Queen claims its egg usage is on track to go 100% cage-free sometime in 2025. 

Although cage-free eggs are not the same as free-range eggs, Dairy Queen's progress on uncaging its eggs has still earned it praise from international animal rights organization The Humane League. Especially when compared to many other fast food chains that have made little to no effort.

Dairy Queen has a massive footprint, with over 4,000 locations in the United States alone. Per The U.S. Sun, the sudden closure of approximately 38 stores over several weeks in early 2025 struck observers as a surprise — especially given Dairy Queen's historic ties to Texas.

The closures came in two separate waves, wiping out Dairy Queens owned by a franchisee doing business as Lone Star DQ. Customers often learned the news by seeing notes from former employees taped to the locked doors of closed restaurants. According to Dairy Queen's corporate office, the closures are due to an issue with the franchisee, and not Dairy Queen itself. Although the recent sudden closures follow years of smaller towns losing their Dairy Queens, you can still find them all over Texas — Dairy Queen still has about 534 locations in the Lone Star State.

When you think of ice cream, your next thought might not normally be pizza. But that is perhaps what Dairy Queen thought when it hired former Domino's Pizza executive Art D'Elia as its new chief operating officer (COO) for its U.S. and Canada operations. Dairy Queen International announced the new COO in a statement on March 18, 2025. In the role, D'Elia will lead a total of 275 employees focused on the chain's operations, training, and marketing.

Prior to joining the executive leadership of Dairy Queen, D'Elia spent seven years leading Domino's international business and serving as chief marketing officer. Luckily for Dairy Queen, the international Domino's business D'Elia led for years is a significant part of that company's ongoing success, with over 21,000 stores in more than 90 different markets. These two companies may serve vastly different products, but Dairy Queen's operations seem to be in good hands with the former pizza executive.

Dairy Queen's Blizzard is an icon among fast food desserts, and has been since its 1985 debut. These days, Dairy Queen celebrates the summer with an annual lineup of limited-time only Blizzard options. But this year, to celebrate Dairy Queen's 85th anniversary, the chain is bringing back some fan favorite flavors of yesteryear, in addition to two new exciting additions.

Now through the summer, fans of Dairy Queen's not-quite ice cream treat can enjoy the all new Mixing Bowl Mashup Blizzard, with brownie batter and chocolate chip cookie dough; and the Dipped Strawberry Cheesecake Blizzard, with pieces of creamy cheesecake, chocolate chunks, and a strawberry topping.

Joining these two new treats are three returning classics: the Confetti Cake Blizzard, with cake pieces and confetti sprinkles; the Cotton Candy Blizzard featuring a cotton candy topping and sprinkles; and the S'mores Blizzard, loaded with marshmallow-stuffed chocolate and a graham cracker crunch. All five of these Blizzards are held together by Dairy Queen's soft serve.

Dairy Queen locations can be pillars of their communities, as was the case with a vintage walk-up location in Portland, Oregon. For generations, the Dairy Queen on 55th Avenue and Division Street was a favorite meet-up location for nearby high school students. But after the aging building was demolished years ago, plans to rebuild stalled out, and the lot became a derelict dump.

In 2023, Dairy Queen executive Fred Braden told The Franklin Post – the student newspaper at the school near the former DQ in question — that "Portland is not an easy place to do business and permitting is rather slow." Not only that, but "we had some missteps along the way that caused us to change architects," he added.

In recent months, the build site has received a slate of new construction permits from the city of Portland, including one as recently as April 2025. Though the replacement restaurant doesn't have an opening date yet, Portlanders can at least know that one of their favorite Dairy Queen locations seems to be working on its comeback.