The Ice Cream Shop –

After Decades In The Ice Cream Business,

 The Whites Decide To Sell

By Kaaren Valenta

How do you put a price on a three-decades-old tradition like The Ice Cream Shop?

Charlie and Wendy White agree that it really isn’t possible. When the Whites recently, reluctantly, decided to sell the ice cream shop, their home, and the building next door that houses Paula’s Café, they knew that no amount of money could replace the years of memories and friendships they had come to treasure since they opened the Newtown shop in 1969. Hundreds of high school students have worked for the Whites over the years, serving millions of cones, sundaes, milk shakes, ice cream sodas, avalanches, zebras, and other ice cream treats.

“The place just took off from the beginning,” Charlie White said. “It’s very hard to give it up. But I’ll be 70 on my next birthday. I’ve been doing this for 41 years full time, and part time before that. I can’t believe it has been so long.”

In 1954, Mr White’s parents bought a piece of land at the corner of Routes 6 and 64 in Woodbury and opened a Dari Lite. It was the heyday of the soft ice cream business with Dairy Queens, Tastee Freezes, Carvel, and many other chains springing up in practically every town in the United States.

But several franchises turned down the Whites’ proposal because they felt the Woodbury location was “too rural.” Finally Dari Lite agreed and the family opened the shop. Five years later, Charlie White took over the business and turned it into an independent operation.

A few years later, he attended a Rutgers University program about ice cream making and met Hank Wilson, a South African who wanted to open a store back home in Port Elizabeth. When Charlie White went to South Africa to help his friend, he met Wendy, who was working at the ice cream shop there. Four years later they were married.

In 1969, when their elder daughter Leighan was three months old, they opened the ice cream shop on Church Hill Road in Newtown and moved into the 100-year-old house next door. In 1974 they moved the house to the back of the one-acre lot, to provide more parking, and prompting Charlie White to quip – to this day – “The next time I move, I’m not going to take the house.”

During the move, bricks were chipped out of the old foundation and used to face the three-bedroom, three-bath house.

Around this time the Whites noticed that the quality of ice cream mixes they had been buying from dairies for their Newtown and Woodbury stores was declining, so Charlie decided to make his own.

“I bought some equipment from the Kent School, which had discontinued its ice cream making, and here and there from farmers,” Mr White said. “It’s like a Model A, works like a precision instrument, and if the new owners don’t want to make their own ice cream, I’ll keep it.”

 Mr White admits that it takes a lot of work to make ice cream. Most days he is on the job by 6 am, but he believes the results are well worth the effort. The Ice Cream Shop is one of a select few that still make ice cream, a point of pride for the Whites.

“There aren’t too many mom and pop stores anymore,” Wendy White said. “We got to know everyone when they came to town. People move away but when they come back to visit, they always come to the shop.”

“That will be a real tough part, missing the people,” Charlie White interjected. “But we plan to stay in the area.”  

The Ice Cream Shop is a seasonal business, beginning in March most years and closing in the fall when the clocks are turned back and it gets dark early. The Whites admit that it is nice to take four months off in the winter, but it also requires working seven days a week the rest of the year, closing only for the Fourth of July and in recent years for Easter Sunday.

“I’d like to work part-time now,” Charlie White said. “I love the business. The people of Newtown, Woodbury, and Southbury have been very good to us.”

The Woodbury shop is being sold to the Whites’ son-in-law Dean, who married their daughter, Leighan, a year and a half ago. Leighan, 31, who sometimes helps at the store, is a massage therapist in Seymour. The Whites’ other daughter, Susan, 24, works for a venture capitalist in California.

Wendy White is gathering all of the names of the many youths that have worked for her over the years, with plans to have a big reunion. Some of her former workers are two generations of the same family. Although the shop will close as usual for the winter, the Whites plan to keep operating it until they find a buyer. They hope to find one before next year.

“I’d love to be able to do some gardening,” Wendy White said. “I grew up with English parents who were avid gardeners. I used to teach school, and I was even in the theater. There are so many things I’d like to do. It would be nice to know what Maine looks like in the summer.”

The Ice Cream Shop (with equipment and training by owner), the house (including a new addition to the upstairs last year), and the building that houses Paula’s Café, are being sold through J. Michael Struna at Advantage Realty for $749,500, plus the sewer assessment. For more information call 798-9345.