Rachel Larson returns home to lead Fergus Falls Dairyland

The neon at 1220 N. Union Ave. stayed pointed at the same old promise: burgers, fries and frozen custard. What changed was the family behind it, as Rachel Larson returned home from Montana to take over Fergus Falls Dairyland and keep one of the city’s best-known gathering spots in local hands.

Pat and Jean Connelly announced on April 3 that they had sold the restaurant, marking its first ownership change in 30 years. The Connolly family had run Dairyland since 1982, and Pat Connelly said he started working there when he was 14. The transition was set up to be gradual, with the Connollys planning to keep operating the restaurant until June and then help Larson for about a month to make sure the handoff was smooth.

Larson is not arriving as a stranger to town. She is originally from Fergus Falls and said her younger two children will attend school here, while all three of her boys will work in the business. That makes the change more than a business deal. It is a family move back into the community around a restaurant that has long been part of summer routines, after-school stops and weekend trips for generations of local customers.

Dairyland’s roots run deep. Built in 1955, it was first owned by Bert Skogmo and began as a small square store with no indoor seating, where customers ordered through a window. Over time it became the drive-in-style restaurant that residents recognize today. MPR News reported that the same place that once drew teenagers borrowing the family car now brings in their grandchildren, a sign of how tightly Dairyland is woven into Fergus Falls life.

The restaurant opened its 71st season on April 15, and the familiar menu remains central to the appeal. Dairyland is known for burgers, fries, ice cream, frozen custard and other comfort-food staples, the kind of steady offerings that help a place keep its identity even when ownership changes. In a city history shaped by Dakota and Anishinaabe land, railroad-era settlement and agriculture, businesses like Dairyland carry more than sales. They carry memory, local jobs and a reason for people to keep returning to downtown and north Union Avenue.

Larson’s return gives Dairyland a new chapter without cutting it loose from the one people already know.