Dairy Queen fans may have fewer places to grab a Blizzard this summer.
As Delish reports, Dairy Queen franchisees have closed at least 46 locations across the country since early 2025, with the most recent closures happening in Alaska at the end of June.
On June 30, three Dairy Queen restaurants in Alaska—located in Anchorage, Wasilla, and Palmer—all closed. According to a statement shared with the Anchorage Daily News, a Dairy Queen official confirmed that the franchise owner of those locations had recently closed them, but did not provide the owner’s name or a reason for the closures. The shutdowns leave just one Dairy Queen remaining in Alaska, located in Soldotna.
Those Alaska closures came just weeks after a Dairy Queen in Great Falls, MT, closed on June 13 after nearly four decades in business. The former owner, Steve Galloway, plans to replace the location with a Mediterranean restaurant called Zesty Eatz, according to KRTV.
The largest wave of recent Dairy Queen closures happened in Texas, where franchisee Project Lonestar shut down 30 locations in February 2025 and another 12 in March amid a dispute with the chain. Dairy Queen pulled the franchises after Project Lonestar failed to remodel its restaurants, leaving the operator unable to order supplies from the parent company.
A Dairy Queen spokesperson described those Texas closures as an “isolated event” tied to the same franchise owner. The franchisees involved in the recent closures have not filed for bankruptcy protection.
Still, the closures arrive at a difficult time for the restaurant industry. Restaurant operators have been dealing with rising costs and more price-sensitive customers. Food-away-from-home prices rose 3.5% in the 12 months before May 2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, putting more pressure on restaurants already trying to manage labor, rent, and ingredient costs.
For now, Dairy Queen is still very much in business. The company, which opened its first location in Joliet, IL, in 1940, operates a system of about 7,800 restaurants across 20 countries through its parent company, International Dairy Queen.
But for fans in the affected areas, the closures mean one less place to get a dipped cone, a Blizzard, or the kind of soft serve that has been part of summer for generations.
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