Dairy Queen reportedly plans to open up to 35 more restaurants in the Chicago area in the next five years.
According to Crain’s Chicago Business, which cites Dairy Queen’s Vice President of U.S. Franchise Development Jim Kerr, the ice cream and burger chain hopes to begin opening the restaurants in the first half of 2017, targeting locations in the city and suburban Lake and Cook counties.
The chain, which was founded in Joliet and is now headquartered in Minnesota, already has a reported 145 locations in the metro area and more than 260 in Illinois.
The locations of the new stores have not yet been identified, but Kerr told Crain’s “our interest in Cook and Lake is because of the density, and much of the area is just not served by our current footprint.”
The report said Dairy Queen is looking in suburbs like Oak Park, Evanston and Rosemont as well as several neighborhoods in Chicago.
