ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 9, 1993                   TAG: 9303090126
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By Associated Press
DATELINE: WINDSOR                                LENGTH: Medium

FAST-FOOD WAR A SIGN OF THE TIMES

Call it a royal feud of sorts: Dairy Queen and Burger King are duking it out over who rules the town's fast-food kingdom.

A large sign outside the Dairy Queen on U.S. 460 and Virginia 258 announces: "Dairy Queen wears the pants on this corner."

For 20 years, Dairy Queen was the only fast-food restaurant on U.S. 460 between Petersburg and Suffolk. Co-owner Mitch Sandlin said his store consistently ranked among the top 5 percent of the 5,000 Dairy Queens nationwide.

But Burger King made a grand arrival in the 1,000-person town in November right across Route 258 from Dairy Queen. The new place includes an Exxon station and a convenience store.

Since hearing last spring that the Burger King was coming, Sandlin has spent more than $100,000 making the Dairy Queen pretty and erecting new signs.

For anyone driving into the Isle of Wight County town from the northwest on U.S. 460, the first hint of the fast-food fight is a billboard just outside Zuni, nine miles outside Windsor.

The billboard shows a prim and proper queen serving food and a harried king, with crown askew, spilling food from a tray held in one hand while trying to dispense gasoline with the other.

"Who Do You Want to Serve You?" the billboard says. "A King with gas or a Queen with class?"

Burger King fired its only salvo in the war of words the first week in February. One of its signs said, "Oh, oh, the Queen's slip is showing."

Asked what the sign meant, Doug Honeycutt, manager of the Burger King, Exxon station and convenience store, said, "It was just a metaphor."

Two days after that sign went up, the Dairy Queen answered with a sign saying, "Oh, oh, the King is feeling intimidated."

Burger King took down its sign the next day. It has yet to return fire.

Sandlin said Dairy Queen plans to have a double billboard near the store by the end of this month with a clever message to continue his battle.

Honeycutt said Burger King would prefer to use its sign space to advertise specials. 





 by Archana Subramaniam

 by CNB