Wineka column: Little has changed over years at Dairy Queen

Meah, Owen, Kaleb and mother Angela Sides , from Salisbury, sit on a bench at the Dairy Queen on West Innest Street. and enjoy their frozen treats. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Dairy Queen employee Branden Stout prepares a sundae for a customer. photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

The Dairy Queen on West Innes Street has been open for 60 years in this location. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Miah Payne looks into the window at the Dairy Queen on West Innes Street for his dipped cone after placing an order with Branden Stout (left). photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

A vanilla cone dipped in chocolate is a common request at the Dairy Queen. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

The Dairy Queen on West Innes Street has been open for 60 years in this location. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Jesse Byrd, also known to Dairy Queen employees as "Butterscotch Man", speaks with shop owner Melissa Utley during a recent visit to the West Innes Street Dairy Queen. Byrd comes everyday for a Butterscotch shake from the Dairy Queen. Coincidentally, Dairy Queen coorporate has decided to end the butterscotch toppings, which has left Byrd ordering a plain vanilla shake. Byrd still comes everyday. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

The Dairy Queen on West Innes Street is in it's 60th year of selling ice cream to the public at the West Innes Street location. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

The Butterscotch Man comes every day to the Dairy Queen on West Innes Street.

Has been for maybe three or four years, since he retired on disability.

Often his medium butterscotch shake is waiting for him by the time he reaches the window because the kids inside know that's what he'll order.

"Medium normally does the job," the Butterscotch Man explains.

The Dairy Queen on West Innes Street, tucked in the curve across from Sam's Car Wash, qualifies as a Salisbury institution — you would, too, if you've sat in the same spot for 60 years.

People who work at the "DQ," the "Queenie," or whatever folks call it, know their customers more by what they order than their real names.

Read further for the Butterscotch Man's true identity.

On May 8, Dairy Queen owners Robert and Melissa Utley plan to offer a day full of specials to celebrate the 60-year anniversary of this store, once described in a survey of potential historic sites in Salisbury as a living example of great "American roadside architecture."

"As far as this building type is concerned, there aren't but so many of these left," Melissa Utley says.

Drive down Innes and it's difficult not to be drawn to this little building with its neon ice cream cone sign on top. Next thing you know, you're standing under the red-and-white awning and ordering an Oreo Blizzard or asking for a chocolate-dipped cone.

Little has changed to this shack with the black-tile front. Michael J. Fox could time-travel back to 1950 and think his flux capacitor was on the blink.

"We've tweaked it over the years," Melissa Utley says, "but we would not want to change the look or feel of the store."

Utley sits on the grass hill above her Dairy Queen and can't help but feel some emotion, looking back at her 29 years associated with this business powered by ice milk. She started here as a 16-year-old, became manager of a second Dairy Queen off Statesville Boulevard in 1986, then eventually married Utley, who first bought into the franchise in 1979.

"You're really making me feel sad," she says, when asked to reminisce.

She remembers spending whole days alone inside, serving up cones, sundaes, shakes and Blizzards, while her daughter, Jessica, was behind her in a cradle, then a play pen, then a walker.

"She was such a pain in the buns up here," Utley laughs. "I was young and dumb, and I would never do that again."

Jessica is now a high school senior who has worked the two windows at Dairy Queen with her friends.

In fact, hundreds of kids found employment at the DQ through the years. Some of those employees' grandchildren are now customers.

"I loved working here as a teenager," Melissa says. "It was a fun place to work, still is."

There's a Facebook page dedicated to former Salisbury Dairy Queen employees.

According to Post files, the West Innes Street Dairy Queen was started in 1950 by two partners from Florida, Gerald Grumbly and Robert Wiederman of West Palm Beach. But it was Jim McCurdy who operated the franchise until it was sold to a young Robert Utley and his silent partner and mentor, Bill Link.

Link died just a few weeks ago.

"We just both had so much respect for him," Melissa says. "It hit my husband really, really hard. He was a good man."

For many years, when he first owned the business, Robert Utley lived in a trailer behind the Dairy Queen. It had an intercom system linking it with the tiny store.

"I wasn't going to live in that trailer," Melissa says.

Over the past 20 years, after Robert started a whole new line of work, Melissa has been in charge of most everything at their two Dairy Queens. She has overseen the hiring, firing, scheduling, training, payroll and ordering for both stores.

At the peak season, the two locations employ 20 part-timers. Most of the employees start in high school and last through a couple of years in college.

The job behind the counter can be a little overwhelming at first. Utley describes the up-and-down — not side-to-side — motion needed for fashioning a soft-serve cone with a curl on top and says it's like riding a bicycle.

If you could do it 20 years ago, Utley says, you could walk behind the window and do it today.

It's a sticky business, too.

"If you can comb through your hair when you get home, you haven't been busy enough," Utley says.

You might think Utley would shy away from job applicants who are involved in a lot of extracurricular activities at school, but it's the opposite.

"I don't mind working around it," she says. "Those are the ones who can handle it."

Utley doesn't go behind the counter as much these days, and she misses the interaction with customers.

"It's always nice to touch base," she says. "You may not know their names, but you know their stories."

Ice cream is, in a way, a recession-proof business. In 2009, as the economy bottomed out, sales held steady. "Last year," Utley says, "I think it was a comfort food."

Melissa still loves ice cream and eats it almost every day. She doesn't even mind if you call it ice cream, though the stuff sold at Dairy Queen is really a lower-fat ice milk. That's not to say the toppings have no calories.

"You can spice it up, and send it way over the top," she says.

The busy time on weekdays at the West Innes Dairy Queen starts about 3 p.m., when school lets out. It slows down around dinner, then picks up again to closing. There's a constant stream of cars in and out of the parking lot.

Sundays are always the big day. Utley arrives about 10:30 a.m. to get things ready for the noon opening, and two or three customers always seem to be waiting. The rest of the day and night can be a blur with six people bumping and grinding in the cramped quarters inside.

Branden Stout, a seasoned employee at six years running, says he has long gotten used to the people gawking at him through the windows. "You're always on display," he says of the fish-bowl environment.

Libby Kerns often brings her son and a friend to Dairy Queen after school.

"We try not to," she says, "but we come here at least once a week."

On this day, Noah Kerns was ordering an Oreo Blizzard; his friend Miah Payne, a Cookie Dough blizzard.

Jessica, a Catawba College student who works as a nanny on Tuesdays, brings 7-year-old Logan to the Dairy Queen as a special treat.

"This is what I always get," Logan says, holding up his chocolate-dipped cone.

There's bad news these days for the Butterscotch Man, a.k.a, Jesse Byrd of Salisbury.

Dairy Queen has stopped supplying the butterscotch flavoring that went into his shakes, forcing him to try vanilla shakes instead. Utley has apologized profusely for the corporate decision.

"As long as the shakes are good," Byrd answers, "I'll be here."