Pilot/Dairy Queen

[SamSpade]

Also, I can't ever recall seeing a Chester's outside of a Love's travel center; is that one of their house brands or do standalone locations exist somewhere?

I think Chester's is available to any fuel operator or mini-mart that might want it, similar to Krispy Krunchy. I feel like I've seen it at a few gas stations in Idaho.

[wnetmacman]

Also, I can't ever recall seeing a Chester's outside of a Love's travel center; is that one of their house brands or do standalone locations exist somewhere?

I think Chester's is available to any fuel operator or mini-mart that might want it, similar to Krispy Krunchy. I feel like I've seen it at a few gas stations in Idaho.

This is correct. Chester's is older than Krispy Krunchy (which is local to me). KK is relatively new to the convenience store game, and really better than Chester's.

[storewanderer]

Also, I can't ever recall seeing a Chester's outside of a Love's travel center; is that one of their house brands or do standalone locations exist somewhere?

I think Chester's is available to any fuel operator or mini-mart that might want it, similar to Krispy Krunchy. I feel like I've seen it at a few gas stations in Idaho.

You'll find Chester's at every King Soopers in Colorado.

[storewanderer]

Pilot Flying J (and Loves, and TAPetro) all have special franchises with each chain they put in their travel centers. While PFJ and Love's primarily are the largest two Arby's franchisees, they also franchise many, many other restaurant brands. Of the three companies, closest to me are:

Loves - 3 locations housing Wendy's/Bojangles, Subway, and Hardee's/Godfathers Pizza Express
Pilot - 2 locations, one housing Arby's and the other Subway/PJ Fresh (their house brand)
TA Petro - 2 locations, one corporate that did house Louisiana's only Boston Market until a month ago, it's becoming The Market (TAP's house Brand, before BM it was Country Pride) and a franchised location with Subway

I have also seen many other brands including McDonald's, Denny's. Cinnabon, Huddle House, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC, Chester's, Moe's and others. What I have noticed is that in these travel centers, the mobile apps do not always accept orders or deals; the Arby's in my local Pilot and Hardee's in Love's are examples of this - no mobile ordering and no coupons within the app either - they don't accept it. I have been to a McDonald's in a Love's that did, however, but McDonald's is usually all or none when it comes to promotions. But with the Big 3 - all bets are off when it comes to matching the standalone franchises and corporate stores.

Love's seems to be moving to the PAR BRINK POS system for the restaurants which is the designated POS system for both Arby's and Carl's/Hardees but they still are not connecting their locations to the app so they must not want to run the discounts. I have used paper Carl's coupons at a Loves unit before without issue and the coupon code was programmed into their system also.

The McDonald's units I have seen in both Love's and Pilot are actually run by area McDonald's franchisees and just leasing the space from Love's and Pilot. I have seen this in multiple states.

There is a Pilot with Wendy's near me in Fernley and this unit was using Pilot's cash register and they would accept Wendy's app offers but they had to manually input them as an open coupon or something. They also accepted paper coupons. Something happened in the past 9 months or so and they actually put Wendy's cash registers into that unit and it now fully supports the mobile app and everything, Rewards, etc. This is an extremely busy Wendy's, I have never seen such a busy or fully staffed Wendy's; it is like an In N Out back in the prep area. Not sure if this is just a Wendys thing or if Pilot is trying to get all of the fast food apps supported for their various brands. From what I see of their Subway units those still use the Pilot cash register as of this past weekend.

[jamcool]

Yet Pilot and DQ are both owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

[ninersdd]

Yeah in Quartzite, Arizona, just east of the CA border, the Pilot had a Dairy Queen for a pretty long time, but it changed within the past year to a Taco Bell.

[storewanderer]

Yeah in Quartzite, Arizona, just east of the CA border, the Pilot had a Dairy Queen for a pretty long time, but it changed within the past year to a Taco Bell.

Quartzite configuration of the Dairy Queen right inside the entry is how the Fernley one was configured for about 20 years. Then Pilot did some renovations on the site in Fernley, downsized the casino a little (it was between the c-store/Dairy Queen and the Wendys) to expand self serve dispenser beverages (coffee, fountain, icee, etc.) and relocate/double the size of the Dairy Queen counter to put it next to the Wendys. I'll be interested to see what Pilot replaces the Dairy Queen with in Fernley or if the casino gets re-expanded.

[bryceleinan]

Dairy Queen was supposedly going to expand with 8 new locations in Reno/Sparks a few years ago but so far that never happened. There is one lone location in Sparks and that is it. There used to be a few in Reno but one in the mall probably failed and the other two over the years the sites were converted to other uses.

Now this Fernley unit is closing, the unit in Winnemucca closed a couple years ago, and I think the one in Minden is barely hanging on.

I think the pricing is way too high for what they are selling. The prices in Fernley were about right. 3.69 for a small blizzard is an appropriate price. 5.99 like Sparks/Fallon want is absolute highway robbery- no clue how that works. Curious about prices I pulled a Dairy Queen in Salt Lake City up (looks like there are only 2 there) and that unit wants 5.79 for a Small Blizzard. So it appears this chain has some really major issues with pricing.

Baskin-Robbins on Mt Rose Hwy closed because DQ is building between Circle K / Shell and B of A. Not sure where else they’re going - they would have been a good tenant for the Steak n Shake locations too.

Not sure if DQ is planning a full-size location in Fernley? Odd that this DQ is closing.

[storewanderer]

Baskin-Robbins on Mt Rose Hwy closed because DQ is building between Circle K / Shell and B of A. Not sure where else they’re going - they would have been a good tenant for the Steak n Shake locations too.

Not sure if DQ is planning a full-size location in Fernley? Odd that this DQ is closing.

I heard Baskin Robbins closed because there was an HVAC issue and it was going to cost many thousands to fix and they couldn't afford to fix it. Also traffic at that center has been suffering since May 2021 for some reason that could be fixed overnight but still hasn't been fixed.

I think the DQ is dead at Mt. Rose Highway due to McDonalds lease restrictions. Their permit from March 2023, they never paid the fees for, so it was never issued. This is probably a good thing because DQ would have failed in that spot. The McDonalds does little business, Taco Bell closed and it was a performance issue. Dairy Queen's food is very poor. The only good product is the ice cream. They wouldn't make it at either Steak N Shake location, especially North Hills as it is way too big for them.

I was also wondering if they have a franchisee who wants to do a full size location in Fernley... but given how these franchise Dairy Queens price, that will fail given Pilot has been underpricing the product in Fernley for years. I enjoyed a large bilzzard this week (oink) at the low price of 4.79. In Sparks and Fallon they want 7.99 for that. I did notice in the 30 minutes or so I sat inside eating, the Dairy Queen only had 2 other customers, one bought a single ice cream cone ($2?) and the other bought a medium blizzard ($4); during that time the Wendys constantly had a line between 3-5 customers plus whatever was going through drive through. So I'm not sure that Dairy Queen even did enough sales to pay labor.

[bryceleinan]

Baskin-Robbins on Mt Rose Hwy closed because DQ is building between Circle K / Shell and B of A. Not sure where else they’re going - they would have been a good tenant for the Steak n Shake locations too.

Not sure if DQ is planning a full-size location in Fernley? Odd that this DQ is closing.

I heard Baskin Robbins closed because there was an HVAC issue and it was going to cost many thousands to fix and they couldn't afford to fix it. Also traffic at that center has been suffering since May 2021 for some reason that could be fixed overnight but still hasn't been fixed.

I think the DQ is dead at Mt. Rose Highway due to McDonalds lease restrictions. Their permit from March 2023, they never paid the fees for, so it was never issued. This is probably a good thing because DQ would have failed in that spot. The McDonalds does little business, Taco Bell closed and it was a performance issue. Dairy Queen's food is very poor. The only good product is the ice cream. They wouldn't make it at either Steak N Shake location, especially North Hills as it is way too big for them.

I was also wondering if they have a franchisee who wants to do a full size location in Fernley... but given how these franchise Dairy Queens price, that will fail given Pilot has been underpricing the product in Fernley for years. I enjoyed a large bilzzard this week (oink) at the low price of 4.79. In Sparks and Fallon they want 7.99 for that. I did notice in the 30 minutes or so I sat inside eating, the Dairy Queen only had 2 other customers, one bought a single ice cream cone ($2?) and the other bought a medium blizzard ($4); during that time the Wendys constantly had a line between 3-5 customers plus whatever was going through drive through. So I'm not sure that Dairy Queen even did enough sales to pay labor.

I laugh when you say “some reason” since May 2021 for the traffic failure at the Wedge / Mt Rose Center. Hubris, stubbornness, and lack of vision on the part of a large regional grocer whose name rhymes with Haley?