Dairy Queen celebrates 75 with new "DQ Bakes" menu items

Dairy Queen announced Monday what it calls the largest new menu rollout in its 75-year history, complete with new hot sandwiches and hot desserts a la mode.

The Edina-based chain has been rolling out nine significantly new offerings for the past month or so, and it said they're now available in 70 percent of its stores nationwide.

The announcement is timed to the Dairy Queen brand's 75th anniversary, which was Monday. Individual stores, including one in Edina, are holding special promotions.

Dairy Queen has added ovens to its locations to create a new "DQ Bakes" line. The new DQ Bakes menu items are spread across three categories: hot desserts with soft-serve dairy, "artisan-style" hot sandwiches and "snack melts."

The hot desserts include a "Triple Chocolate Brownie" and an apple tart. The sandwiches include a turkey BLT and a chicken bacon ranch offering with grilled chicken and Swiss cheese. The snack melts include a grilled Buffalo chicken item and chicken quesadillas.

"This is a game-changer for our system, " Barry Westrum, Dairy Queen's executive vice president of marketing, said in a statement.

Dairy Queen, which has nearly 6,500 stores in North America and 25 other countries, is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, led by well-known investor Warren Buffett.