Since 2000, Mike Donald has been serving happiness to others with Dairy Queen’s frozen treats.

He’s worked in the quick service food industry for nearly 40 years, having started off as a student working at a local Burger King before diving into the world of franchising himself. “Obviously, opening up your own restaurant is a wonderful thing,” Mike explains. “But we know how many of those don’t last.”

Based on Mike’s experience, having support, guidance, and an established rule book to follow from a national brand is a great way to start a business.

The official name of their business, Kids N’ Kones, was his wife’s idea, Mike says, to reflect their target audience and DQ’s famous soft serve cones. They bought their first Dairy Queen location 24 years ago, their former location in Cole Harbour.

Originally, Mike was doing his banking with another financial institution. But a friend who worked at CUA’s nearby Cole Harbour Branch invited him to consider CUA. The personalized service and competitive rates are what sold Mike on switching his banking to CUA. Knowing he can call his Small Business Advisor at any time with questions is nice too, he says.

In spite of some tough times over the years, the business has done quite well for itself. Mike explains that having CUA by his side for the past 20 years has made a big difference, especially in the early days.

“CUA has helped with the purchase of equipment. I’ve had loans over the years and lines of credit. It’s been wonderful. Very, very wonderful to deal with CUA.”

Over 14 years after opening his original location in Cole Harbour, Mike moved across the harbour to a new location on Chain Lake Drive, where you can still find him today. 

The key to a successful business, Mike believes, is great staff. Acknowledging the high turnover rate in the food service industry, Mike says that his DQ location still has three employees who have been with him since the store opened.

“It’s one of those feelings you get at Dairy Queen,” Mike says, referring to the ‘Happy Tastes Good’ tagline. “If we’re happy here at work, if the staff are happy, the customers are happy.”

And as Mike always says, “I don’t pay [staff] wages, the customer does.” If customers are happy and keep coming back, staff know that it benefits everyone.

This philosophy has led to success. An exciting and recent accomplishment for the store was learning that out of all Dairy Queen locations in Canada, of which there are nearly 700, Mike’s location ranks eighth in cake sales.

“We’ve worked hard on that here,” Mike says. “We run our cakes all through the night, and then we finish stuff off in the daytime. It’s the only way we’ve been able to keep up with it.”

Making the top ten in the country is “pretty nice to know,” he says.

Underscoring the importance of giving back to the community, Mike says that in August, Dairy Queen will once again be celebrating Miracle Treat Day, with proceeds from each Blizzard purchased on this day going towards supporting the IWK Children’s Hospital. From past years, Mike says they’re usually able to donate approximately $6,000-$7,000. The occasion is close to Mike’s heart, as his own children have spent time at the IWK.

“They were so wonderful to me and my family during those times,” he remembers. “It’s important to me that I keep supporting it.”

With Dairy Queen’s summer Blizzard flavours out now, Mike looks forward to serving more happy customers.

“People love to come get a treat,” he says. “I always kid everybody; there’s no calories in a Blizzard if you’re getting a treat. That’s one of those things.”

Mike’s own summer plans sound pretty good to us as well. “I’ll plant some flowers out front, once the weather’s nice. Sit outside on a bench with the umbrella and enjoy a Blizzard.”

Our team at CUA is happy to have been able to help Mike on his journey, and we can support businesses like yours with our Small Business Loan Guarantee Program. Learn more about CUA’s commercial products here.