Dairy Queen Coming To Main Street Farmington

FARMINGTON — If plans go as scheduled, a new Dairy Queen Grill & Chill will open on Main Street in Farmington sometime in the summer.

“There’s a lot of contributing factors but our target is to be serving ice cream in July,” said Tom Smith with G.T. Management, owner of the property and business. Smith and Cheryl Zotti of Fayetteville are partners with G.T. Management. Smith’s wife, Kendra Smith, is also involved in the business.

Smith lives in Springdale but is a former resident of Farmington. He said he wants to open the restaurant in Farmington because of the growth of the community and because “I love Farmington.”

Dairy Queen has a great business model and a great menu, Smith said.

“I like the model. Who doesn’t like ice cream? You have a good breakfast, lunch and dinner menu and people come in between for snacks. It has a great snack menu. And no pun intended, the icing on the cake is the cakes. I think it will be a great asset for our area.”

Kyle Sargent with Redline Construction submitted the large scale development plans for a new Dairy Queen to the city of Farm- ington last week. The restaurant will be located at 310 W. Main St., site of the former Cardinal Corner gas station and convenience store at Double Springs and Main Street.

The plans will go to tech review and will be considered by Farmington Planning Commission on March 28, if all requirements are met by then, said Rick Bramall, city building official.

The large scale development plans show the building has 2,612 square feet and seating for 70 people. The plans are preliminary and could change before a final plan is approved by the Planning Commission.

Sargent said construction should start in about 45 days. Prior to then, the Cardinal Corner building will be demolished and fuel tanks removed. The goal, said Sargent, is to be open in mid-summer.

G.T. Management purchased the property Dec. 31, 2015, according to Jacci Perry, who had the listing for the property with Keller Williams realty firm in Fayetteville.

Perry said she had talked to others about opening a restaurant on the corner but none was ready. She said she believes the location will work well for a Dairy Queen.

“It’s the Cardinal Corner,” Perry said. “Everyone has known that

forever. It was a great location for a convenience store. It’s on a corner and has good traffic. I think it could be open 24 hours.”

Perry said the Farmington property is one of three convenience stores that she has been trying to sell. The Cardinal Corner property had been on the market for about eight months.

“It makes the best sense because of the traffic and it’s in Farmington,” she said Thursday. “(Farmington) is just a good, western suburb of Fayetteville. Fayetteville is growing into Farmington and Farmington is right there to keep on growing. Farmington is busy.”

Smith said he expects the Farmington Dairy Queen will employ about 85 people and he hopes to hire locally for key positions.

“Dairy Queen has strict requirements for managers,” Smith said. “I will be an owner but not an on-site manager.”

He said the company will work diligently to meet the approval of the city.

“We are looking forward to working with the city to get plans approved,” Smith said. “We’re excited. We love Farmington and are excited to be there.”

Apparently, many people in the area also are excited about a Dairy Queen coming to Farmington. A post about Dairy Queen on the Enterprise-Leader’s Facebook page shows the news was reached by more than 29,000 users. It had more than 570 “likes” and was shared by more than 400 people.

Comments on the page include: “We are moving to Farmington,” “just for all us that like Dairy Queen,” “Way to go… Going big city, are ya?” and “Yippee! We wanted it on Wedington but this works.”

The only other DQ in Northwest Arkansas is in Lowell.