Starbucks’s Howard Schultz made the term “third place” part of the national vocabulary. As he built out the coffee chain, he wanted it to be someplace people could spend time in when they were not at work or home.
The third place has a deep tradition in Europe, whether they be Italy’s coffee shops or England’s pubs.
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People need a place to come together where they can relax, connect with friends and build community. A third place, especially in a smaller community, becomes a kind of de facto community center.
In the small town where I grew up, Swampscott, Mass., the local Dunkin’ has served as the center of the community for decades. If you can find a a parking space, you will enter a store where old-timers have occupied the same tables since the dawn of time and younger folks drop in to pay their respects (and grab an iced coffee).
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Swampscott has a Starbucks now, but “Dunkies” remains the heart of the town, its third place where gossip gets shared, celebrations take place and people maintain their connections. If the chain ever closed that location, it would be a deep loss to the community because the store serves a vital function beyond caffeinating the locals.
In a more rural town (Swampscott is only three square miles, but it’s jam-packed) the loss of a third place can be devastating. That’s something many communities are experiencing now as an iconic ice cream chain closes hundreds of locations.
Dairy Queen locations close
Larry McMurtry’s “The Last Picture Show” tells the story of a small Texas town losing its movie theater. Dairy Queen, while it’s not actually mentioned by name, plays a crucial role in the film.
It’s the clear “third place” for the community, and while the town in that literary classic is fictional, Dairy Queen does fill that role in hundreds of similar real-life communities.
Over the past few months, about 30 Dairy Queen locations in Texas have closed. These closures, it should be noted, are due to a dispute between the parent company and Project Lonestar, a franchisee.
“These closures are related to closures last month by the same franchise owner,” a Dairy Queen spokesperson said of the shutterings. “The closures are an isolated event, and we refrain from publicly sharing contract terms.”
Essentially, the parent, American Dairy Queen, pulled the franchises from Lonestar after it failed to remodel them. That meant that those locations could not order supplies and would have to close.
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The disagreement prevented Lonestar from selling the locations, which forced it to close the Dairy Queen locations it operates.
Project Lonestar at one time had 38 Dairy Queen locations.
Ice cream chain has long history as a third place
While any community would be sad to see its Dairy Queen close, these closures hit harder. Most of them are in small Texas towns where the ice cream chain fills the role of third place.
“It’s an impact to our culture, absolutely,” said Remelle Farrar, interim director for the local economic development corporation in Canadian, a town of about 2,300 in the northernmost part of Texas, Daily Yonder reported.
Dairy Queens have been closing in smaller towns as the company’s overall footprint has shrunk.
“In Canadian, a town whose economy has over the years been supported by cattle ranching, nearby oil and gas exploration, and tourism, there are multiple locally run restaurants,” the Daily Yonder reported.
“But the Dairy Queen still served as an important gathering space,” Farrar told the website.
About half the shuttered Dairy Queen location were in towns with populations of under 3,000 people.
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“Rural areas are more likely to struggle at providing such ‘third places,'” Danielle Rhubart, a researcher at Penn State University who studies rural health and well-being, told Planetizen.
International Dairy Queen Inc., headquartered in Minneapolis, is the parent of American Dairy Queen and Dairy Queen Canada Inc.
Through its subsidiaries, IDQ develops, licenses and services a system of more than 7,700 DQ restaurants in more than 20 countries. IDQ in turn is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A) (BRK.B)
