900 Dairy Queen customers kept a pay it forward chain going for nearly 3 days

(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

published 17 December 2020

Earlier this month, a man ordering lunch at a Dairy Queen in Brainerd, Minnesota, told the cashier he'd like to pay for the car behind him, which triggered a "pay it forward" chain that involved 900 customers and lasted nearly three days.

Tina Jensen, the Dairy Queen's general manager, told Today Food that pay it forward chains usually end by the 20th car, but this time, it kept going, and by the end of the lunch rush, 100 people had participated. The staff kept Jensen updated on the number of cars, and she posted about it on Facebook. Customers would come in and were excited to participate, while one person called in and asked to buy a gift card, which could be used if a person wasn't able to cover an entire order — for example, if a customer ordered an ice cream cone and had a family that spent $40 in the vehicle behind them.

By the time the chain ended on Dec. 5, nearly three days after it started, 900 customers covered $10,000 in sales. Jensen told Today Food she was proud of her staff and how their positivity energized customers. "Since March, tons of things have changed, tons of things are going on, and it's not just in the store," she said. "We are people. We have things going on outside ... the energy was definitely uplifting. There was no negative energy going on."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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