86 Years Ago, This Fast Food Restaurant Opened With A First-Of-Its-Kind Menu

The year 1940 was eventful to say the least — really, there's no such thing as an uneventful year, but especially not that one. World War II continued to roil the globe, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won for a third time in the presidential election, and on a somewhat less dramatic note, Bugs Bunny made his first appearance. Meanwhile, in Joliet, Illinois, the first Dairy Queen opened its doors, becoming one of the first places in the world to serve soft-serve ice cream.

A man named J.F. McCullough and his son had devised a formula for soft-serve ice cream, which they claimed tasted bolder and fresher than regular frozen ice cream due to not numbing the tongue quite so much. At first, they sold their concoction at an ice cream parlor in Kankakee, Illinois, run by their friend Sherb Noble, but they were soon ready to strike out on their own (sort of). They partnered with Noble and opened the first Dairy Queen, focusing solely on ice cream, without any of the hot food or frozen innovations (such as the Blizzard, which inspired the McFlurry) that would come later. Still, from this humble start grew a successful fast food chain that helped pave the way for other quick-service restaurants to come.

Anyone who's looked into the origin of dishes like onion rings (invented in the 19th century) or the Jell-O shot (which may or may not have been invented by musical satirist Tom Lehrer) will tell you that these matters are rarely straightforward. In the days before mass communication, it was not uncommon for a number of people to happen upon a recipe or innovation independently — which may very well have happened with soft serve ice cream. In 1926, a man named Charles Taylor filed a patent for an ice cream machine that's generally accepted as the first soft serve dispenser. (The Taylor Company persists to this day, as the controversial manufacturer of McDonald's frequently-broken ice cream machines.)

And in 1934, six years before the first Dairy Queen, another ice cream chain might have scooped ol' DQ. Tom Carvel, a New York businessman born in Greece (his birth name was Athanassios Karvelas), sprang a flat tire on his ice cream truck, which prompted him to pull over into another store's parking lot and sell his gradually melting ice cream to passersby. His customers turned out to prefer the softer, meltier ice cream, and inspiration struck. Still, though, whether it was Taylor, Carvel, or McCullough who first invented soft serve, it's an innovation we're glad we still have today.