Note: This story was last updated at 5 p.m. Aug. 20.
Dairy Queen is coming to Oak Ridge.
The Dairy Queen will be located at the corner of Rutgers Avenue and Oak Ridge Turnpike, where a Taco Bell restaurant used to be. A new Taco Bell has been built east on the Turnpike, at the intersection with Bus Terminal Road.
Workers were at the Dairy Queen restaurant site on Monday, putting up a “DQ Coming Soon!” sign and unloading construction equipment.
Called for comment, Jake Brewer, executive vice president of Avison Young of the Knoxville area, said Fourteen Foods, a Dairy Queen franchisee with headquarters in Minnesota, purchased the property from Guilford Glazer Marital Trust of California on Friday. The property includes the former Taco Bell building and more than an acre, and it sold for $875,000.
On Tuesday, Jeff Wright, director of community marketing for Fourteen Foods, confirmed that Fourteen Foods is coming to town and putting a Dairy Queen where the former Taco Bell restaurant used to be. It will be a Grill and Chill restaurant with a full menu that includes food and treats, Wright said. An opening date has not been announced yet.
Called for comment Monday, Parker Hardy, president of the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber has been working with Fourteen Foods and Dairy Queen for five years, trying to bring a Dairy Queen restaurant to Oak Ridge.
Fourteen Foods owns and operates 222 DQ Grill and Chill restaurants and Dairy Queen Braziers in Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
You can contact John Huotari, owner and publisher of Oak Ridge Today, at (865) 951-9692 or john.huotari@oakridgetoday.com.
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