In many areas off the the Texas highway, Dairy Queen is so much more than than just a fast food joint: Dairy Queen is, quite literally, the acropolis of the county.

An uncanny number of small Texas towns consist entirely of a very large Dairy Queen complex surrouned by a group of shacks or mobile homes. The actual restaurant takes up only a small wing of the complex; the rest holds various shops and meeting areas. Most stores sell only tourist attraction items from the Lone-Star State, but some inventories are as extensive as that of Wal-mart. They might sell everything from clothes to linens to snacks. And just about everybody who is anybody in these towns is at the Dairy Queen on Saturday night; nothing particularly exciting happens there, but everybody goes there because there is literally nowhere else to go.