Saturday night at the DQ

        How do I love Gahanna?  Let me count the ways.  Which I will definitely do in an upcoming blog.  Because I really do love living here in Gahanna, Ohio.
        For one thing, if you happen to be in our fair town and find yourself with a hankering for ice cream, you needn't travel very far in any direction; because within our 3-by-4 mile town of 33,000  people we have Whit's Frozen Custard,  Petey's Ice Cream, 2 United Dairy Farmers, Cold Stone Creamery, Baskin and Robbins, Greater's, the Purple Cow at Meijer's and, of course the cone machine at each of the the 3 McDonald's;  for frozen yogurt we've got  Menchie's; if you're craving a gelato, which is ice cream on steroids, we've got Rita's. (I haven't included the various and sundry Gahanna fast-food restaurants that offer shakes but not ice cream, since the list would then go on to kingdom come). 
        But if you're in Gahanna on a Saturday night and it's a 'cream you're craving, odds are you're going to wanna be where the people are, which is the Dairy Queen on Granville Street.
       

The Gahanna Dairy Queen last Saturday night, 9:00 pm.

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    Dairy Queen is where the coach takes the team after a big win.  It's where you take your kid after their dance recital.  It's where you go when when you're jonesing for  what you can't get at any of the other ice cream places.
    Because, let's face it, there's just this je ne sais quoi about a Dairy queen cone: the taste, the density-to softness ratio as you lick your way 'round the ice cream, the curl on top.... there's just this  nanocosmic distinction that makes all the difference.
    And, of course, if you want a Blizzard, you want a Blizzard, right?
    I've eaten manys the Dairy Queen cones in my day (and hope to eat manys the more before I leave the planet)  at manys the various locations around this great country of ours. 
    But I'm putting it out there that our Gahanna Dairy Queen is the best of them all.   It's spacious and roomy, and no matter how crowded it is you can always find a place to sit.  And a parking spot (though we almost always walk from our house to the DQ, as we did last night). And there are rest rooms.  And the servers, though running around like crazy,  are always cheerful and friendly.
    And it doesn't even seem to matter to anyone that the state of the ice cream assembly  area behind the counter always tends to look a little, um, well, sticky....Oh, well, maybe the servers are  just so busy being nice and helpful that they don't always have time to grab a wet rag... or a broom for the floor.
    But that's okay, we all seem be able to look past that issue.  I guess it's because the Dairy Queen is sort of like family, so you'll be indulgent.
    Though as far as I know the Gahanna Dairy Queen on Granville Street has always been owned by the same family,  I don't actually know how long it's  been here. 
    But it's been here as long as we have, though of course having lived here a mere 27 years makes us still sort of Gahanna arrivistes.   However  whenever I ask one of the Gahanna born-and-raised folks of my generation they say, "The Dairy Queen?  Oh, it's just been there forever."  
    And as long as there are Saturday nights in Gahanna, I guess it always will be.

Tom, at "our" table.

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