ToquiNotes: My Kingdom for a Nutter Butter Blizzard
By Jeff Toquinto on February 17, 2024 from ToquiNotes
Perhaps since it is the time of year when you can actually have a blizzard that I can’t get my mind off Blizzards. Or perhaps it’s because at both locations of the offices of Connect-Bridgeport I have been just a stone’s throw away from seeing a Dairy Queen sign.
Here, at our current office at Charles Pointe, Dairy Queen sits inside the BFS Convenience Store. I try to avoid the store entirely because of it. At our old office on the top floor of the Benedum Civic Center, if I looked out the window to my left, the former owner of the building and the time and my friend Ed Helmick’s gigantic Dairy Queen sign was standing guard over the Main Street corridor and it beckoned to me like the call of the Siren.
As Jerry Seinfeld once queried, “Who amongst us can resist?”
Much to the surprise of many that know me, I have somehow found a way to resist that bright red DQ logo with the white lettering more often than not. And much to my own surprise, I haven’t been barreling through the doors every day since I’ve been working within – even for me – walking distance of both locations of a restaurant that has satisfied my sweet tooth on probably hundreds of occasions in my lifetime.
Of course, that could all change in a heartbeat. All it would take is for this soft serve fast food giant to is to reintroduce something that was introduced in August of 2011 – the Nutter Butter Blizzard.
Let’s be perfectly clear about everything that’s written from this point forward. This is not an endorsement of what certainly can’t be described as a healthy food alternative. What it is, is a question asking those fine folks who make the corporate decisions for Dairy Queen, “Where in the world has the Nutter Butter Blizzard gone and when – if ever – is it going to come back?”
Now for those of you out there who have your own special brand of Blizzard that you love, this isn’t detracting from that. Actually, it’s quite the contrary. I want you to continue to love your favorite flavor or even your flavor of the month Blizzard. And if you think this is detracting from the standard choice of Blizzard out there, again, that’s not the case. My love for M&M’s Blizzard is completely unconditional.
Even with my professed love for the M&M’s Blizzard, you have probably already figured out I have a second love affair from the Blizzard family. It’s the aforementioned Nutter Butter Blizzard and in the Dairy Queen family, I guess it’s become like Chuck from Happy Days (Google it).
For starters, the combination of ice cream and peanut butter is a winner. That seems obvious considering that combining those two items 
with just about anything works. In other words, the marriage of the two products seemed to be a no-brainer. Yet, we’re roughly at the 13-year anniversary of the last time the Nutter Butter Blizzard was available, so it is safe to assume the marriage has dissolved completely.
with just about anything works. In other words, the marriage of the two products seemed to be a no-brainer. Yet, we’re roughly at the 13-year anniversary of the last time the Nutter Butter Blizzard was available, so it is safe to assume the marriage has dissolved completely.
Since that beautiful month of August back in 2011, I’ve waited patiently as one Blizzard of the Month after another came and departed without the trace of a Nutter Butter offering. The flavors of the month continue – whether it’s been Mint Oreo, Pumpkin Pie, Waffle Crunch, Peppermint, Georgia Mud Fudge, or a host of others – like a parade going past me and thumbing its sticky, sugary nose in the air at me.
The thing is, I couldn’t blame Ed Helmick for this back when he was the owner, or the current owner, or the owner of any other Dairy Queen franchise whether in Bridgeport or beyond. Several years ago, while asking Ed about the return of it, which I did regularly, he said “ask him.”
The name of “him” escapes me. But “him” was a regional representative of Dairy Queen who was doing work in downtown Bridgeport inside of Ed’s location. Ed introduced me and I figured if I had the person I considered the Godfather of the Bridgeport Dairy Queen with me that my pleas that Dairy Queen needed the Nutter Butter – and needed it badly – might work.
It did not. I was told it was not that popular in West Virginia, which I find hard to believe based on my consumption numbers alone. Still, it did not work, including my past emails to corporate that I eventually gave up on. Perhaps someone can introduce it locally; perhaps my friends at Toni’s in the Adamston section of Clarksburg will do it in their spinoff of the Blizzard.
I just think I can’t be alone with missing the Nutter Butter Blizzard and the 25 grams of fat that came in a small serving (I’m a medium guy). Then again, maybe it is just me missing this culinary collision of sweet flavor. After more than a decade, I have a feeling I will be left wandering the frozen wasteland of Dairy Queens without finding a Nutter Butter Blizzard for eternity.
I tell myself it is the craving is not as bad as it seems. I tell myself the absence of it has made my sweet tooth grow fonder of it.
There is salvation. There are plenty of incredible sweet treats all across Bridgeport from Almost Heaven Desserts on Main Street to Bonnie Belle’s at White Oaks and many points in between.
Until then, I’ll just stare drive past both Bridgeport locations and hope for the best. Maybe I’ll answer the call of the Siren and get something else. I’m sure Jerry Seinfeld would approve.
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