Mr. Kummer, my mother, Angela, forwarded your email, addressed to my sister, Samantha, to me.
When we were children, my grandmother and Grandfather used to drive from out of state to pick up my brother, sister and I so that we could spend some of our summer vacation with them. Being children, we could never wait until half way through the trip because they would always stop at Dairy Queen to get us a treat, and so they could rest a bit. We loved it. Over the years I have taken my children to DQ and paid the higher prices because of the nostalgic memories I have of going to DQ as a child. Unfortunately, because of the literal and figurative bad taste this has left in my mouth, this will no longer be the case.
I am contacting you to say that we are very disappointed in your establishment.
The Elderly woman you refer to is my grandmother. She has gone to Dairy Queen to get an ice cream cake for all of our birthdays ever since she tried one about 2 years ago. She loves them, says she has never had anything so good.
All of this is why the moldy cake and rude treatment has come as such a great disappointment to her.
I understand that ice cream will not mold in the freezer. It was not the ice cream that was moldy, it was the crumbly cookie in the center. I also understand that the cookie portion probably did not mold in the freezer, it is my opinion that it was foul when it was used to make the cake.
This may not have been noticed when the cake was made because the odor was faint until you got a bite close to your nose. It was not visibly moldy, but there was a very pungent moldy flavor.
In your email you stated that you and your staff enjoyed eating the cake we returned. I hope that you are all feeling well. My husband ate a few bites before he got to a portion of the cake that had the foul flavor. It wasn't long after that and he started feeling a little sick. After the short, cakeless festivities, I took him home and he was feeling worse. Shortly after, he was in the bathroom praying to the porcelain god. About an hour after he had evacuated the entire contents of his stomach, he felt much better.
The birthday cake was in fact beautifully decorated and went straight into the freezer after a 10 minute trip from your DQ to my grandmothers house. It was in her deep freeze for about 3 days.
The center could not have molded from being out of the freezer, the entire cake would have melted in the time it would have taken for that to happen.
A gift certificate in the amount of our purchase is in fact a gesture of good will and is appreciated, but, this did us no good in the celebrations of the day. We were not willing to take the chance that the same batch of cookie center might have been used in one of these cakes made so close to the same time.
I am glad to hear that the employee has been disciplined for the rude behavior and that you will continue to train and re-train your employees in customer service. The same with the sanitation issues we described.
I have a hard time understanding why you agree with the sanitation issues but disagree about the state of the birthday cake.
Best Regards,
Kerri & Jim, Josh, Anna, Angela, Samantha, Tim, Margie, Harry, Jody, Randy, Tony, Candice