The first signs of spring in Minnesota are like a starting pistol for ice cream season, sending people of all ages racing for the nearest frozen treat they can find.
Unfortunately, this season is playing out differently in Blooming Prairie, where the local Dairy Queen was forced to shut its doors back in March after incurring significant smoke damage due to a fire next door.
“It’s kind of killing me to be closed for May,” said owner Jamie Klemmensen, who owns the restaurant with her husband Jay.
May is the usually the biggest month of the year for the business. While closing for several weeks has been frustrating, it’s looking like they won’t have to chalk the month up as a total loss.
The Klemmensens hope to reopen around the week of May 20, reintroducing their customers to a whole new Dairy Queen. At first, they’ll be offering drive-thru service and outdoor dining only, with indoor dining to follow later on.
They’d been planning to remodel the restaurant since purchasing it in 2022, and were going to commence soon when the fire broke out, advancing their timeline. Knowing they’d have to close for a few weeks anyway to repair the damage, they saw the perfect opportunity to revamp the business inside and out.
When it reopens, the Dairy Queen will feature a larger kitchen, more freezer space and a redesigned drive-thru with spaces for customers to pull ahead and wait for their orders, keeping traffic moving.
Prior to the fire, the building hadn’t changed significantly in the past 50 years. The remodel ended up being even more extensive than they planned.
“Just like any project, you uncover some fun building issues,” said Jay. “We ended up taking it way further than we were planning. It got taken all the way down to the studs.”
Workers are currently finishing up electrical work, with flooring and insulation to come next.
The March fire
The fire started the evening of March 29 while Jamie was working at the DQ, accompanied by her 6-year-old daughter Bailee. Jay was working at Eagle Prairie Insurance, the business he operates next door.
Bailee was the first to mention the smell of smoke. Opening the south door of the building, Jamie saw a dense cloud of smoke billowing toward them from the business behind DQ, Cedar Crest Construction. She evacuated the building, sending employees to the insurance office. They found the office empty, with Jay nowhere to be found.
“I didn’t know where he was,” Jamie recalled. “I come running over here to tell him and he’s gone.”
Jay had already noticed the fire, and rushed over to ensure no one was inside. Finding it empty, he called the owner.
The Blooming Prairie Fire Department responded to the call, with support from other area departments, extinguishing the blaze that night. The Klemmensens thanked the firefighters with Dilly Bars.
“We made sure they were taken care of,” said Jay.
“They were pretty excited about that,” added Jamie.
While the fire never spread to the DQ, much of the equipment inside was ruined. The plastic components of the ice cream machines became porous as they heated up, trapping smoke particles inside. With no way to expunge the scent, they had to replace all the plastic inside.
The whole work family
Although they’re not able to offer their full pay, Jamie said it was important to continue paying their employees while the restaurant is closed.
“They’re awesome and I don’t want to risk losing any,” she said. “I didn’t want anyone to go start looking for another job wondering when Dairy Queen was going to reopen.”
She cited the employees’ customer service as the main reason for the business’ success, and wants to ensure customers are greeted by the same faces even if everything else is different. Most of the crew has been with them since they took over.
“We basically learned how to work a Dairy Queen together. It was chaos, but it was fun,” said Jamie.
They began renovating the restaurant a week after the fire. Since then, their day shift cook Mike Kubicek and his son Parker, one of the assistant managers, have helped out at the construction site regularly.
“I’m ready to get back to work,” said Mike.
The Klemmensens originally found themselves in the DQ business almost by accident.
Jay started Eagle Prairie Insurance in 2014 and, tired of commuting to work in Rochester, Jamie started graphic design business Klemmensen Creative the following year. Both businesses are housed in the same office, right next to the DQ drive-thru.
With plenty of business experience between them, they began talking about bringing a coffee shop to Blooming Prairie, feeling people needed a place to gather in town. At the time, the previous owner of the DQ was considering retirement, and they were under the impression that transferring a franchise from one owner to the next wasn’t possible.
They envisioned turning the building into a coffee shop, until they learned from Dairy Queen corporate that transferring ownership to them would be a simple matter.
“We were like, we can’t be the ones that are going to take Dairy Queen away from Blooming Prairie, because that’s one of the only places to eat. We just basically found ourselves in the Dairy Queen business,” said Jamie.
Since then, they’ve operated year-round, drawing customers from Blooming Prairie as well as Owatonna, Austin and other communities.
Reopening
The Klemmensens plan to spend some time familiarizing employees with the new building and getting back into “Dairy Queen mode” before customers arrive.
The new layout should drastically reduce foot traffic through the kitchen, improving their efficiency and making things easier for employees.
“We’re not going to be bumping into each other all the time,” said Jamie.
They’re anticipating a rush of business once they reopen.
“It’s going to be a madhouse,” she laughed.
After the initial wave dies down, they plan to host a grand reopening this year.
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