Dairy Queen Store

It was summer the last time I went in here, and it was just as hot inside as outside. So I ordered anyways, because ice cream sounded so good, and sat down to wait. It was a bad idea, it took forever and I was the only person in there! The burger was good. The fries were gross. The ice cream was really good, it’s hard to mess up ice cream though. Drive by this place and find another spot for ice cream.

Five stars for their pork fritter sandwiches, which is really all I am reviewing.
Basics: a barn-​like room with molded plastic benches, a nearly empty ice cream novelties case, and a menu that includes sandwich meal combos, pop, soft serve cones and dishes, and Blizzards. They don’t take debit or credit cards. It’s perfectly pleasant to sit at a table, but I would really recommend take-​out if you want to wander down by the river for some park-​like ambiance.
And now… drum roll… the Charles City Dairy Queen’s Iowa Pork Fritter Sandwich.
The Iowa Pork Fritter is a food that I have only just begun to experience, and I freely admit that I would gladly do my research, tasting pork fritters in all their individual/​county/​city/​home kitchen variations throughout all of the majestic state of Iowa until I was quite unable to move around without a stout walker and one of those portable oxygen rigs you see old people with. They are that addictive.
A pork fritter is in spirit a bit like a Weiner schnitzel. Indeed, given the vast number of German (Austrian, Prussian, Bavarian) immigrants that came here in the 19^th century, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the modern pork fritter didn’t start as a Weiner schnitzel that some homesick Austrian farm wife whiped up and plopped on a bun.
To fashion a fritter, a piece of pork (chop? shoulder? no idea — must find out) is flattened into a roughly circular fritter shape about ¼″ thick, dredged in a coating (flour? egg wash first? crumbs? I don’t know) and then deep fried. It can’t take long to fry, so that the result is moist pork goodness inside a crispy golden crust.
At the CC DQ, you can order your sandwich with «everything» or spend an extra $.70 for «veggies.» «Everything» gets you a splurt of mustard, a splort of ketchup, 3 or 4 pickle rounds, and a little onion. «Veggies» adds tomato slices and, I think, more generous slices of onion.
I prefer «everything,» others want «veggies,» it’s all good. What really matters is the perfect pork fritter inside a bun with more substance than a hamburger bun, the tang of pickle and mustard and the slight sweet of ketchup, and the delicate snap of the onion, all forming a perfect sandwich harmony.
At the CC DQ, the edge of each fritter is a crunchier ring of deep fried breading, yielding to the vast interior portion of moist, flavorful pork with its less crunchy exterior. Every bite is serious perfection — an amazingly harmonious combination of crisp, moist, meaty, soft, tangy, sweet, and crunchy.
As for price… I ordered thinking I’d have to whip out $ 3.99 for my sandwich, but it’s cheaper than that. $ 3.99 gets you a combo meal. I believe the fritter sandwich alone is $ 2.99 — although that recollection might be a pork-​induced hallucination. (I wasn’t buying.) In any event, a pork fritter sandwich at the Charles City Dairy Queen will cost you UNDER four bucks, and will put a smile on your face that will persist through snarky family arguments, raspberry beetles dive-​bombing into your beer, and sunburn, all calamities that befell me during this last visit to Charles City. Fortified as I was by deep fried pork, I was invincible. If you get a fritter at the CC DQ, you will be too.