![]() The Dairy Queen franchise had evolved from a take-out or “quick bite” business to an actual restaurant where people would sit for a meal. Seattle’s new suburban DQs emphasized their abundant parking and larger-size buildings with adequate “eat-in” areas. Seattle newspaper advertisements of the 1970s show that the Dairy Queen franchise was still viable, but all new stores were opening in the suburbs, following the population trends. After Dairy Queen, the building was occupied by Domino’s and then by Zaw Pizza. In May 2016 Veraci became the latest pizza restaurant to occupy the Dairy Queen building at 7320 35th Ave NE. In addition to the economic downturn of the Boeing Bust, the flight of young families out of Seattle caused many businesses to close because of lack of customers, especially businesses like Dairy Queen which appealed to young people. They moved to the suburbs outside the Seattle City Limits, where their children could attend a neighborhood school. Many parents moved out of Seattle to get away from the busing program. In my opinion the busing damaged the social fabric of Seattle, as it took away people’s sense of involvement, investment and ownership in their local/neighborhood school. The Boeing Bust years: businesses decline in the early 1970sĪdding to the difficulty of the Boeing Bust years, in the early 1970s the Seattle Public Schools began a program of forced busing for racial integration. ![]() The loss of population caused some businesses to fail. As people lost their jobs, many left Seattle, and the census showed that the population of Seattle was lower in 1970 than it had been in 1960. Airlines cut back their flights Boeing Aircraft had fewer orders to fill and they began massive layoffs. The downward economic spiral was caused partly by the Mideast Oil Embargo which choked off supplies to fuel-dependent industries such as airlines. This photo is of Zaw Pizza in 2013.ĭairy Queen did well in the busy growing years of Wedgwood in the 1960s but by 1970 Wedgwood, along with all of Seattle, was feeling the effects of a recession. Originally there were gas stations on both sides of the building. The Pizza building (now Veraci) at 7320 35th Ave NE was built for Dairy Queen in 1964. The DQ building on the Safeway parking lot was torn down after DQ moved to another close-by location in July 1964. The site formerly occupied by DQ on the parking lot of the original Safeway building, is now the steep driveway out to NE 75th Street, because the Safeway parking lot was raised and leveled. The new Safeway (the present building) was completed in 1965, and was positioned all the way to the east at the back of the lot. The first Safeway building, which opened in 1951, had been built close to 35th Ave NE with parking on the sides and behind the building to the east. The Morgan house is still extant, shown here next to Safeway to the east, facing NE 75th Street. Here’s more info about Don Morgan who took the Dairy Queen photo above, and the demolition photo. By early 1964 DQ was notified that Safeway would remodel and take the space that DQ was occupying. The Dairy Queen at Safeway opened in 1960 and was only on the Safeway lot less than four years. The Morgan house at 3603 NE 75th Street is now behind Safeway as rebuilt in 1965. The Safeway site was zoned commercial and a ground lease from Safeway to Dairy Queen was legal. Then as now, NE 75th Street was the southern boundary of the Wedgwood neighborhood so the community club may have considered the Dairy Queen to be out of their purview. We know that the community club desired to ban 19-cent hamburger drive-ins from Wedgwood, but there is no indication of whether they objected to the Dairy Queen. The Wedgwood Community Club quickly and successfully acted to get the city building department and City Council to prevent the drive-in from being completed. That year, alert Wedgwood neighbors had noticed that a so-called restaurant being built at NE 84th Street, present site of the Windermere office, had characteristics of a drive-in. It is not known whether the Dairy Queen operators were aware of Wedgwood’s hamburger drive-in protest of 1958. ![]() Photo courtesy of Don Morgan who lived in the house at left, 3603 NE 75th Street. Dairy Queen looking eastward along NE 75th Street, when the store was on the site of the first Safeway.
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