The 19-Year-Old Dairy Queen Manager Who Stood Up for a Blind Customer Is Looking for a Favor

The 19-year-old Dairy Queen manager who shot to fame last year after standing up for a blind man says he is currently working on purchasing his own Dairy Queen.

Joey Prusak, whose courageous defense of a blind customer went viral last September, told TheBlaze he is now focused more than ever on opening up a location of his own.

"I had a a meeting with the CEO of Dairy Queen and I told him I wanted to open my own store," said Prusak, who has worked at the Minnesota location since he was 14. "I need help finding a location because they are really picky about locations. So they are looking into a couple spots right now that they could possibly use a store."

Joey Prusak, 19, stood up for a blind customer last year at the Dairy Queen he manages. (Image source: Facebook)

The only problem? Prusak says he doesn't have the necessary capital to open up his own store and hasn't found an investor.

He's still looking.

"I want someone to basically put the pressure on me and let me prove to them that I can make it," he said. "I have been working at a Dairy Queen since I was 14 years old now, so six years, almost seven years now. And I've been running it completely on my own."

[sharequote align="center"]"I want to find an investor to really invest in me and let me just prove to them that, 'Hey, I can make us money.'"[/sharequote]

"I literally am by myself at my location. I do everything from the book work, writing out the checks, placing the orders — I mean, I literally run the store," Prusak continued. "I want to find an investor to really invest in me and let me just prove to them that, 'Hey, I can make us money.'"

The 19-year-old says that after he finds an investor, it's likely he can get a Dairy Queen location opened up in a matter of months. He is attending the necessary owners training in March, which he says will allow him to immediately move forward after he locates an investor.

Last September, Prusak told TheBlaze how he was "shocked" and "sickened" by what he says he saw happen to a blind man at the hands of an elderly woman customer.

Prusak said that one of his frequent guests, a man who is blind, walked into the local Dairy Queen. When the blind man took out his wallet to pay, a $20 bill slipped out of his pocket.

The woman behind him quickly snatched the bill off the floor and put it into her purse.

Prusak saw the entire thing unfold and refused to serve the woman, demanding she return the money to the blind man. She refused and stormed out.

That's when Prusak took matters into his own hands.

The 19-year-old reached into his own pocket and said, "Sir, on behalf of Dairy Queen, I would like to give you the $20 that you happened to drop on the ground as you walked away from the counter."

A customer later posted the story to Reddit, where it went viral. As a result, the young manager made appearances on "The Glenn Beck Program," and "The Queen Latifah Show," among others. Beck later flew Prusak to Dallas, where he spent three days shadowing him and had the opportunity to meet former "Dirty Jobs" host Mike Rowe.

—

Follow Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) on Twitter