“Got a date tomorrow night?” asks this advertisement, published April 30, 1957. “Come on over to Dairy Queen for a real treat for you and your gal. Just order any sundae or shake and Dairy Queen treats your date to the same! She can be your mom, daughter, sister, niece, aunt, wife or girlfriend, we don’t care—if she’s female, the treat’s on Dairy Queen.”
The “home of the cone with the curl on top” hosted Date Nite on Wednesday, May 1, 1957 from 7 p.m. to midnight.
Among the participating locations was the shop in Emerson, which still operates on Kinderkamack Road all these years later.
Ever since Dairy Queen got its start in Joiliet, Ill., back in 1940, franchises began spreading out across the country—even though back then vanilla was its only ice cream flavor. The Emerson Dairy Queen opened on Kinderkamack Road in 1952, making it a part of childhood nostalgia for generations of Pascack Valley residents.
Another was the shop in Tenafly, located at Riveredge Road and Railroad Avenue.
The Tenafly Dairy Queen opened in the mid-1950s and continued business into the 1980s. The Planning Board had been considering a proposal for a two-story commercial building for the site when a new ice cream dealer, Fine Ice Cream, stepped in and purchased the property. Eventually the building was torn down and now a bank is located there. Still, photos of the old DQ bring back fond memories for generations of people who grew up in Tenafly.
