One of the joys of small-town living is the mom-and-pop stores that give the neighborhood its unique charm. Although many of the cute stores that existed when I moved in have become the victims of big box retail, our ice cream store, Dairy Deluxe, still stands in its original location. Shaped like a barn, with a red gabled roof, customers line up outside, bank teller style, to place their orders, while a four-foot ice cream cone with googly eyes slouches near the entranceway, a treasured, yet vaguely creepy mascot. But it isn’t the kitschiness of the store nor the abundant ice cream options which gives Dairy Deluxe its allure, it’s the fact that the store is closed all winter that gives it its hype.
Somewhere toward the end of February, on that first 50-degree day when the sun finally functions as more than just a giant light bulb, speculation begins about when the store is going to open. Although the store has an Instagram account, their posting is spotty, so usually we find out about it from the handwritten sign they paste up on the front window, and the information is swiftly transmitted by word of mouth. Meteorologists would have you believe that spring starts on March 20 but they’re wrong, spring starts on the day that the Dairy Deluxe opens.
