By Kenneth Glidden, Head Culture Co-Writer
Photos from Kenneth Glidden and Hip2Save
I scream, you scream, we all scream for half-off ice cream!
McKendree Monday used to be everyone’s favorite part of the week. If you are new here, or decided to live off campus and under a rock, McKendree Monday was a day of sale at the local Lebanon Dairy Queen. Every Monday, from open until 9 p.m., everyone with a McKendree ID would get 50% off of their order. Recently, the campus was in uproar over the fact that Dairy Queen changed it from every Monday to the last Monday of each month. Now, the campus is entirely infuriated over the fact that two months after that decision, Dairy Queen decided to end the McKendree Monday sale forever. This controversy has sparked many emotions across the campus of McKendree University,
It only makes sense that when you see what goes on behind the scenes and the work necessary to provide such an amazing service, you sympathize and can accept that all good things must come to an end. There are plenty of students, however, that don’t understand why this is happening and are outraged. After speaking with a few students, quite a few of them had something to say.
Hope Euler, a sophomore, said, “I found out McKendree Monday was ending over a Snapchat story. What a horrible way to find out about this tragedy.” While some heard the heartbreaking news over social media, others found out via word-of-mouth that their weekly sweet treats would be back at the original price.
Ethan Larson, a senior at McKendree wrote, “I was very upset because I loved the half off. I went every week when McK Monday was available.” This must be a devastating blow to our seniors here at McK who have come to know, love and (from time to time) depend on McK Monday.
Those of us here at the Review want you to be heard and know what is really up with McKendree Monday, from the perspective of someone that works there.
Lilibeth Castillo, a current employee at Dairy Queen and McKendree student, was willing to shed some perspective on the ordeal and even give some insight into what it’s like on the other side of the drive-thru window.
“It was obviously the hardest day of the week,” says Castillo. “I worked the window so I got to interact with every customer. It was fun until I realized how many split orders a car wanted; this made my life harder.” Something as simple as multiple orders in a car can really increase waiting times in drive-thru lines and cause confusion amongst the workers, but according to Lili, this isn’t even the worst part of a McKendree Monday.
“The worst part about it was when the clock showed me it was 9:00 pm.,” she explains. “This is when stragglers would show up demanding we give them a discount … and what they didn’t realize is that my screen’s ‘McK Monday’ discount button physically didn’t work past 9:00pm.” Even after finding out how hectic Mondays are at Dairy Queen, there had to be more to why DQ would shut it down, because even hectic business is still business.
When asked about why McKendree Monday stopped, Castillo answered, “I believe we stopped because the store wasn’t making any profit. Lines were long and work on Mondays was extremely busy, and I guess it wasn’t worth it anymore. Also, a lot of students would change their mind and not purchase their $50 order when they realized they pulled up to DQ at 9:45 and the discount ended at 9. Then they [Dairy Queen] were losing product by throwing food away.”
It is unfortunate to hear these downsides and valid points as to why McK Monday is no longer sustainable, but that doesn’t mean you can no longer enjoy a frozen treat from time to time. All McKendree students and faculty still receive a 10% discount on their order any day of the week at our local DQ with proof of ID. I asked Castillo one final question: #BringMcKMondayBack? She responded with quite an amazing idea.
“Honestly, I think that McK Monday should just be for ice cream,” she shared. “Food makes it way too complicated for the workers and the customers sometimes, but with the prices they offer, I understand why it was such a big deal for everyone to come out.”
It was quite the split when I asked around campus if people knew about the everyday 10% off at DQ with a majority of students not knowing about it, but when I asked around campus the question #BringMcKMondayBack? it was purely resounding ‘yes.’ So remember, fellow Bearcats, while change in this case was necessary, there are still ways that our local Dairy Queen is helping us with the broke college life many of us live.
