Nearly 70 years of business and real estate. Druther’s is still American-owned and privately-held. From 1956-1990, we were known by a few other names... Burger Queen Enterprises. Burger Queen Systems. Queen-Air. Royal Equipment Company. Vencorp. Bluegrass Financial and Investment Corporation. King Neptune's Seafood Galley. Huckleberry's. Druther's Restaurants. The Fresher Cooker. Druther's International. Druther's Systems, etc.

Druther’s traces our history back to 1956, when Harold and Helen Kite opened the first Burger Queen restaurant in Winter Haven, Florida. In the early 1960s, business partners George Clark and Mick Gannon bought franchise rights and permission to expand the chain to Kentucky, later joining forces with the Kites and forming our main company with George Clark and his brother, John Clark. In the early 1980s, Burger Queen and Druther’s President Tom Hensley and Vice President Robert Gatewood acquired our companies and brands from Harold Kite and George Clark. In 1990, Druther's became a Dairy Queen® territory operator, converted an entire chain of restaurants to the DQ® brand, and brought our breakfast program, partners, vendors, and proven systems along.

Druther’s, headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky and headed by Robert Gatewood and Brian Easley, is proud to currently partner with, invest in, and provide support to locally-owned and operated Dairy Queen® restaurants in Kentucky, Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia, as well as various business and real estate ventures across the country. In the nearly seven decades our companies have been active, we’ve been a part of over 350 businesses in multiple states and countries. We look forward to the next chapter of the Druther’s story, and we thank all of those individuals and families who have been a part of our companies, or who we have had the privilege of serving at our restaurants.