Dairy Queen opens for business

Dairy Queen opened June 20 on Heritage Parkway.

The last three weeks have been fun to build a crew, said manager Quade Hoff.

“Most of them go to school here in Tea so they have a lot of local connections,” Hoff said. “All of those little ties that we have in the community I really like because I like to be really involved in the community.”

Right now they have 32 employees, but Hoff noted that they are always looking to add both full and part-time employees. All of their employees must be 16 years old or older.

“We have plenty of opportunity for people to move up. We’re always looking for hard workers and people that love to join Dairy Queen. It’s definitely a fun work environment all on its own,” he said.

Hoff was born in Luverne, Minn., and then his family moved to Sioux Falls before they moved to Tea about 12 years ago. His parents still live in Tea and he lives in Sioux Falls with his wife.

His grandparents are from the Menno and Freeman area. His paternal grandparents owned a cafe. From a young age, he would go help out on weekends when they would go visit. He also credits his grandparents for being a good example of being involved in their community.

“They did a lot of outreach in their local community too so I think that’s what gave me that early love for reaching out to the community you’re involved in,” he said.

As an adult, he worked as an assistant manager at a Sioux Falls HyVee. Most recently he was an assistant manager at Freddy’s Frozen Custard and Steakburgers in Sioux Falls. He was an assistant manager when they opened both of the Freddy’s stores.

He had a couple of people he worked with at Freddy’s follow him to Dairy Queen, along with building a crew.

“It’s definitely been fun to build a solid crew too of brand new faces, local faces and see them have fun and prove themselves,” Hoff said.

During the construction phase, Ace was very helpful in sharing their power with Dairy Queen’s contractors. Ace also donated a couple of cases of water because they did not have air conditioning yet. When the Dairy Queen crew was training on how to make the food, they shared that food with workers at Pizza Ranch and Ace. They also invited the other business’ employees to come over and place orders to help the Dairy Queen employees practice.

Hoff appreciates the location of being along the highway and being next to these other businesses. While they were not open in time for Teapot Days, they did participate in the parade. They have been experiencing a lot of support from the community.

“We’ve seen a lot of the love for something different and Dairy Queen. It’s been awesome to see people coming in on their lunch breaks, seeing some of the same regular people coming in just because we’ve done so well taking care of them in the past,” he said