The Yuengling Ice Creamery not only helped the brewery survive Prohibition, it closed over a half-century after the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed.

D. G. Yuengling & Son bears the distinction of being the oldest operating beer brewery in the United States. The firm was established in 1829 by David Gottlieb Jungling, who had emigrated from Stuttgart, in the German state of Baden-Wurttemburg, just one year previously. It wasn’t always the best of times for the Pottsville, PA-based brewery, and the worst of times began just after the stroke of midnight on January 17th, 1920… the beginning of the 14-year-long Prohibition Era.

The family-owned firm was forced to employ a variety of strategies once the nation officially went “dry”. The most obvious move was to brew a range of 0.5% alcohol content “near beers”. The brewery had another trick up their sleeves, however, one which would far outlast both the dealcoholized brews and Prohibition itself.

The Yuenglings owned a small dairy, and, as they say, “from little acorns, mighty oak trees grow”. Yuengling’s Ice Cream Corporation was established, a dedicated creamery was built, and by the end of the Roaring Twenties two more facilities opened in the Pottsville area. One of them is the long-abandoned factory we’re featuring.

As the Great Depression closed in and with no end in sight for Prohibition, Yuengling’s ice cream operation expanded into the production and distribution of milk. This prompted (in 1930) a name change to the Yuengling Dairy Products Corporation.

Unlike so many other businesses, the Yuengling companies were actually thriving thanks to their dairy products (frozen and otherwise), near beers, and even a couple of branded dance halls in Philadelphia and New York City. Leave it to history to throw them another curve: on December 5th of 1933, the Eighteenth Amendment establishing Prohibition was repealed through the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment. That called for a celebratory drink… but what about the ice cream?

The fact is (or was), Yuengling’s ice cream had to be good, sell well, and make a profit – if not, the entire enterprise might have gone kaput. Thus, when the Yuengling brewery re-opened in 1933, the ice creameries didn’t miss a beat for, say, the next half century. And you thought beer and ice cream didn’t go together!

By the early Eighties, the Yuenglings faced a very different type of challenge: the family-owned and run businesses ran into age-related issues. The Yuengling younglings, if we may, weren’t up to maintaining and managing the ice cream operations. In addition, the Pottsville plants were showing their age and expensive upgrades loomed. It was time to fish or cut bait, and in 1985 management chose the latter option.

Well-regarded brands are hard to come by, and such was the case with Yuengling’s Ice Cream. In 2014, David Yuengling – cousin of the brewery’s current owner – revived the brand that now offers ten different flavors of Yuengling’s ice cream made at a new plant in nearby Orwigsburg. The featured Yuengling’s ice creamery, meanwhile, abandoned since 1985 and evocatively photographed by Joel Handwerk of Lithium Photo, is doomed to eventual demolition… and that’s a sher-bet.

Chill out, soft-serve ice cream fans, these 12 abandoned Dairy Queen stores aren’t typical of the 75-year-old chain’s 4,000+ locations worldwide.

Founded in June of 1940, Dairy Queen has carved out a viable, sustainable, and for the most part successful niche in the fast, er, “fan food” industry. Take it from Warren Buffett – the legendary investor’s Berkshire Hathaway holding company has owned International Dairy Queen Inc outright since 1998.

Though abandoned by Dairy Queen, the chain’s original location on 501 N. Chicago St. in Joliet, IL still stands thanks to its 2010 designation as a city landmark. Originally built in 1895, the building was a DQ until the early 1950s – subsequent tenants included a lawn-mower repair business, a furniture store, a motorcycle shop and a plumber. Since 2007 the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God has dispensed The Lord’s message at the historic location, presumably accompanied by chilled communion wafers.

More Like Ender

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here…” the hope of enjoying some fan food (not fast food), that is. Credit Flickr user haymarketrebel with the above photo of a closed and abandoned Dairy Queen in Tustin, CA snapped on November 20th of 2013.

Grilled, Chilled, Killed

Traditional fixtures of small-town America, larger and more restaurant-style Dairy Queen Grill & Chill stores began to appear in 2001. The above store, located in Savannah, GA sports the revised corporate logo that debuted in 2007.

Too big to fail? Nuh uh: Flickr user C-Bunny snapped the shuttered store in April of 2011 and noted the presence of “Closed for Renovation” and “Notice of Bankruptcy” signs plastered to the glass drive-thru window. Which is it, DQ… why not both?

Stuckey’s to be You

Flickr user Steven Wilson (ezeiza) has the hots for Dairy Queen: his dedicated online album features over 140 photos and counting! Wilson included but a single abandoned DQ; a combination Stuckey’s/Dairy Queen store in Lindsborg, KS that judging by the overgrown landscaping has been shut for some time.

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Out Cold 12 Closed Abandoned Dairy Queen Stores

If ice cream trucks are rolling symbols of childhood happiness, abandoned ice cream trucks are sadder than a dropped double-scoop cone on a hot summer day.

This forlorn former ice cream truck has found an odd sort of peace, marooned amongst fellow relics of good times (not to mention Good Humor) past at the Pearsonville Junkyard in California’s High Desert. Kudos to Flickr users cins_city (top) and codywbratt (above) for capturing this one-eyed metal monster basking in the eerie twilight glow. Curiously, the decrepit van appears to have moved to a different location on the lot during the year between the two photographers’ visits.

Colorado Low

“Is there anything sadder than a junked ice cream truck?,” asks The Truth About Cars’ Murilee Martin, to which the answer is none… none more sad. This unusual minivan-style ice cream truck is destined to count down the days before it’s fed to the crusher in a Denver-area pull-your-own-parts salvage yard.

The clapped-out 1998 Ford Windstar van’s dayglo paint job and copious stickers haven’t faded much and from all indications it sold Blue Bunny brand ice cream, frozen treats and cold drinks – you’re a long way from Iowa, old friend. Sadly, it seems they’re sold out of Rice Pudding Bars… make that “gladly”.

Desert Desserts

You can get your kicks on Route 66 but don’t expect to enjoy a cool, refreshing frozen treat afterwards… at least not from these abandoned ice cream trucks beached amidst the tumblin’ tumbleweeds somewhere in the Great Southwest. Doubtless these old blue Dodge ice cream trucks were once a welcome sight for tourists, travelers, cowboys and ind, er, Native Americans. Now they’ve been relegated to the modern equivalent of a bleached buffalo skull.

Forest Dumped

From baking deserts to baked Alaska, abandoned ice cream trucks are everywhere it seems. “This is what happens to ice cream trucks in Alaska when they play the same annoying tune too much!,” notes Flickr user Van Vickle Photography after posting the above image taken in early August of 2013. One wonders, though, if an abandoned ice cream truck plays an annoying tune in an Alaskan forest, does anybody hear?

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Meltdown 12 Dripped Dropped Abandoned Ice Cream Trucks

Hundreds of orange-roofed Howard Johnson’s hotels, motels and restaurants once served fried clam strips and ice cream to tired, hungry American travelers.

Mistake By The Lake – Cleveland, OH

(images via: William Bird, Collisionbend and Cleveland.com)

Howard Johnson’s Lakefront Motor Lodge opened in 1965, the historical heart of the company’s postwar golden age. Offering spectacular views of Lake Erie and easy access to downtown Cleveland, the 12-story highrise featured a Red Coach Grill restaurant and Cocktail Lounge (how Mad Men!). Clevelanders of a certain age will fondly recall enjoying Howard Johnson’s famous ice cream at the in-house restaurant… and will not-so-fondly recall the longstanding eyesore the building would become.

(images via: The Plain Dealer/Marvin Fong and Peace On Earth)

When Howard Brennan Johnson (son of founder Howard Deering Johnson) sold his company in 1979, it set off a decade-long domino effect of ownership changes, none of which helped the chain recover its declining fortunes. Howard Johnson’s Lakefront Motor Lodge epitomized the corporate trainwreck: by 1986 the hotel had lost its Howard Johnson’s branding and stood as an abandoned eyesore until late 2009, when the wrecker’s ball was finally allowed to complete the building’s collapse.

Poolside View – South Carolina

(image via: Tim Hill (timojhill))

The I-95 corridor was made for travelers and where there are travelers, you’ll find a Howard Johnson’s… or what used to be one. This moldering abandonment waits silently for either the wrecking ball or a casual arsonist while defiantly wearing its mildewed orange roof as a callout to long past better days. Kudos to Flickr user Tim Hill (timojhill) for infusing just the right amount of subtle menace into the disturbingly distinct photo above. By the way, potential trespassers, the “pool” is closed and diving is NOT recommended.

Architectural Afterlife – Springfield, OH

(images via: Debra Jane Seltzer (Roadsidenut) and Host of the Highways)

All dogs may go to heaven but only a few expired Howard Johnson’s make the leap, and the former HoJo’s restaurant off US-40 in Springfield, Ohio is one of them. Would it be flippant to suggest this venerable eatery has been reborn to serve a higher power? Does the collection plate exude the faint aroma of fried clams? Does the whole scenario smack of a yet-untold Simpsons story line? Hey, we’re in Springfield after all.

(image via: Scottamus)

Much like old Holiday Inn signs, Howard Johnson’s signs were the faces of the franchise and when a HoJo loses its mojo, the sign is either the last to go or the first remnant to be reused. A tip of the hat to Flickr user Scottamus for the er, heavenly photo from July of 2010 of the former HoJo’s main signage above.

Dayton Blues

(images via: Host of the Highways and Scottamus)

The Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge and restaurant off I-75 in Dayton was built in 1959 and enjoyed the better part of a quarter-century as one of the Ohio city’s prime travel service destinations. All that came to an end in the mid-1980s when the Motor Lodge became first an Econo Lodge, then the unbranded Parkway Inn. The latter closed in 2005 following the shooting death of a patron in a drug deal gone bad. After sitting abandoned for several years, during which the former HoJo’s trademark orange roof threatened to shed its alien coat of dull blue paint, the complex was demolished in April of 2010.

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Hojos Lost Mojo 10 Abandoned Howard Johnsons

McDonald’s McFlurry is the coolest thing on the menu but not all McMenus are created equal. Take these 9 cool McFlurry flavors… oops, our bad, you can’t!

Durian Crunch McFlurry – Singapore

(image via: Facebook/McDonald’s Singapore Page)

McDonald’s is a proven master at thinking global while acting local and if you don’t believe that, feast your eyes (and nose) on the Durian Crunch McFlurry. This limited edition, Singapore-only dessert treat takes vanilla soft-serve ice cream blended with durian syrup, adds a crunchy topping, and is served in a squared off frosted plastic container.

(images via: KavielTeo, Annagunn and Larsblog)

You’ll pay $2.80 SG (about $2.24 US) for each helping dished out from any of the innumerable McDonald’s Dessert Kiosk outlets scattered all across the city. That is, of course, if you love durian… there’s no middle ground when it comes to the “(stin)king of fruits.” Try bringing your Durian Crunch McFlurry into certain hotels or onto Singapore Mass Rapid Transit trains? That just might cost you a caning.

Bubblegum Squash McFlurry – Australia & New Zealand

(images via: Brand Eating and Pretty Random)

Sweet-toothed fast-foodies fear not, the Bubblegum Squash McFlurry does NOT contain squash in any way, shape or form so Aussie & Kiwi parents can forget about sneaking some veggies into their children’s diets. In fact, the word “diet” should not be allowed anywhere near this pink, white & blue confection concoction made from bubblegum flavored syrup and marshmallows mixed into vanilla soft-serve ice cream.

Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry – Canada, UK & Ireland

(images via: Coloribus and Facebook/McDonald’s Ireland)

You might think the McFlurry is as all-American as Mom’s apple pie but it actually originated in Canada: a McDonald’s franchise store in Bathurst, New-Brunswick first introduced the spoon-blended dessert in 1997. Canada continues to refine a distinct McFlurry identity with the Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry. Coinciding with the appearance of its main flavoring feature, the Cadbury Creme Egg, the Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry is usually available in most Canadian, British and Irish McDonald’s stores during the annual run-up to Easter.

(image via: Out Is Through)

Not all stores in all regions add the Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry to their menus, which can be frustrating to devotees of the sickly sweet chocolate-shelled fondant orbs in all their various permutations. How does one know they’re such a devotee? Taking selfies with your long-sought sweet treat in foreign locales like London (England or Ontario) is a pretty good indication.

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Swirl World 9 Cool Mcflurry Flavors You Cant Get Here