March 30, 2022

Hartford is getting its first Dairy Queen.

It will be the seventh location in South Dakota for franchisee Lonnie Heier, who has owned Dairy Queen locations for 16 years.

His other restaurants are in smaller communities throughout South Dakota, including Vermillion, Martin, Winner, Mobridge, Eagle Butte and Pierre, where he currently lives.

He and his family will be moving to Hartford along with opening the store there.

“It’s obviously going to grow by leaps and bounds in the near future,” he said. “We love the proximity to the interstate and just the fact that it’s its own town outside of Sioux Falls that has its own identity. And we just decided that our family was ready for a change, and Hartford is a great small community but close to the big one.”

The restaurant will be a full-size DQ Grill & Chill on Western Avenue across from Coffee Cup Fuel Stop and off the Interstate 90 exit.

“It’s our next-generation design,” Heier said. “In South Dakota, there’s only Yankton and Huron that just remodeled, so this will be the third one. And it will have a double drive-thru, so it will be one of the first to have that.”

The plan is to be open by the end of the year.