Dairy Queen: 50 years and still serving

Alicia Wolph Roshong jokes about her family's ownership of the Dairy Queen store at 1204 N. Countyline St. "This is the start of our 50th season. (My parents) got it when I was 2 years old. That shows how old I am, right," she said with a laugh. But smiles and laughs are supposed to be synonymous with eating ice cream, and Wolph Roshong wants her employees to remember that as they serve customers at either the building's drive-through or walk-up windows. "Ice cream shops have that mom-and-pop feel that gives you a little warm and fuzzy," she said. "I always tell our girls, 'If our customers don't leave happy, there's a problem. They're getting ice cream from really nice, sweet girls, so when people leave, you make sure they are happy. There's no reason why people getting ice cream aren't happy, right?'" Fifty years is a good run for any business, and the Wolph era hasn't changed much since Vince and Sandy Wolph bought the operation, which was already affiliated with the national Dairy Queen enterprise. It's the same building that's been on the site since before the Wolph's bought it, with the employees dispensing products that have become part of the landscape for Fostoria and other locations. "Everybody knows you," said Wolph Roshong, who along with brother Clay bought the operation from their parents in 2018. "I'll have people come to the drive-through when I'm working and people are like, 'Aren't you Sandy and Vince's daughter?' and I'm like, 'Yeah, I am.' "But Dairy Queen has been a stable of the community for so long. I think it is something the community needs. We have been here for that long and it's almost like a staple. That's nice. Everybody does know everybody. You get to know the regulars -- people just walking up here every day for lunch and getting the same thing. ... It's a community. It's not just a franchise." Vince and Sandy Wolph took on the Dairy Queen when they were working in the city as an employee of the Environmental Protection Agency and an attorney, respectively. In turn, Alicia and Clay have run the DQ, while Alicia continues her law practice in Fostoria and Huron, and Clay operates his chiropractic business next door to Alicia's building in downtown Fostoria. The siblings' acquisition of the DQ did not come without some trepidation. But it also had a feeling of being like old times. "It kind of got plopped in our lap," Wolph Roshong said with a smile. "We were very, very busy, so we kind of needed another business like a hole in the head. But it's kind of like a second skin, running this store because my brother and I have been helping with it since we were kids. I think I started working here when I was 11 or 12. My brother did the same. He worked in the back, and I knew how to do everything in the front. We always even helped with money, with ordering and doing other things. My mom kind of was the bookkeeper and did most of that stuff, but we helped out a lot. "So, for us to jump in was really simple. We got the Dairy Queen in 2018 and we've gotten it into the 2020s." Under the Wolph siblings, the local DQ has started accepting payment by credit card and looked at other ideas, though it has not become a "Brazier" franchise that serves fried foods (though the local store does offer chicken and barbecued beef sandwiches, along with sloppy joes and hot dogs). "We just tried to be a little bit creative and look at other franchises, so we developed our value meal, which is a big, big, big hit," Wolph Roshong said. "People love the value meal -- you basically get one free thing when you get a value meal. "Credit cards -- that was one of our biggest changes. Another big change was we brought the homemade Dilly Bars back. We make them ourselves, hand-dip them." A signature move, nearly literally, was tracking down a vintage DQ sign online and bringing it in for installation on the roof. "The vintage component is cute," Wolph Roshong said, noting that, nationally, Dairy Queen is celebrating its 80th birthday. All of DQ's employees are teenage girls, which is norm at any ice cream storm. And by employing them, Wolph Roshong entrusts them to largely run the operation and prepare themselves for endeavors ahead. "We give them an awful lot of responsibility, more so than my parents did," Wolph Roshong said. "We try to teach them the ins and outs of the business. So, when, let's say the money's short, they know, 'Uh-oh, we made a mistake at the register. ... They are much more conscious, then, of being careful because at the end of the night, what we do is actually have the girls do the money for the entire day. They figure out if we're short, if we're over. They do it all for me, whereas, before, my mom didn't have the girls doing that kind of thing. "I want to teach them more of how a business, really truly operates and to see what happens when mistakes are made. It makes them much more conscientious employees." All of this comes in handy for Wolph Roshong's 16-year-old daughter, Hayden, and Clay's daughter, 17-year-old Ashtyn, who not only work at the store now but plan to follow in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents and run the DQ as well as pursue careers of their own. "They've shown an interest and they're very close, too," Wolph Roshong said. Hayden and Ashtyn are veteran of working for their parents and have learned a lot. "You know how to count money, and we have to do orders sometimes, order the actual things that are needed for Blizzards and sandwiches and whatnot," Hayden said. "We do inventory and see how much we need, and then we tell my mom, and usually she does the orders." Hayden's not sure what type of career she'll pursue, but she's looking forward to her side job of running a place where she's literally grown up. "It's pretty cool," she said. "My grandparents owned this before and we would just come here and do things in the back. Then when we finally got to work here, we got to make ice cream and stuff."