Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Neighborhood report

Bayshore Beautiful: Famous S Tampa ice cream to live on

When Mike's Pies moves out of 4004 S MacDill Ave., Old Meeting House Ice Cream will move in.

By MICHAEL CANNING
Published July 30, 2004

Here's some good news for ice cream lovers craving Old Meeting House's Coconut Zig Zag and Rum Raisin.

Old Meeting House Ice Cream, which hasn't been sold over the counter since its namesake restaurant closed last year, is opening in the Mike's Pies spot on MacDill Avenue.

The award-winning pie and coffee shop has outgrown its 9,600-square-foot space at 4004 S MacDill Ave., said owner Mike Martin. So he's moving to a 31,000-square-foot warehouse at 4330 S Manhattan Ave.

When Mike's Pies and Coffee Shop reopens, tentatively by Oct. 1, it will have a loading dock and more production space, storage, parking. The coffee shop side of the business will also expand, taking over an adjacent 2,000-square-foot building occupied by the Olive Branch Resale store. It will have more seating and a drive-through.

After the pie shop vacates, Old Meeting House Co. owner Matthew Hoffman will begin renovations for the ice cream parlor. In a nod to the original Old Meeting House, which opened in 1947, "we're really hoping the new place will look like an ice cream shop out of the 1950s," he said.

Hoffman hopes to open by the end of the year. The restaurant on Howard Avenue is for sale or lease.

Hoffman, who bought the Old Meeting House with partners in 1997, plans to have seating for about 30, more kitchen space and possibly a drive-through.

When the Old Meeting House went out of business in November, production of its ice cream, arguably the landmark restaurant's most popular item, continued out of the building. Using the recipes developed over the years by restaurant founder Jim Strickland and his longtime ice cream maker, Harold Scott, Hoffman has been producing Old Meeting House Ice Cream for wholesale customers.

Hoffman said he has 35 clients, including Tampa Yacht and Country Club, Newk's Cafe, Roy's, Java and Cream, and other area restaurants, hotels and retirement homes. The new location will allow him to expand his wholesale operation while serving walkup customers. The ice cream production area will be visible from the outside through a large picture window.

Hoffman plans to make more than 50 flavors, including Old Meeting House favorites Coconut Zig Zag and Rum Raisin, plus new ones like Bananas Foster and frozen custard. Sorbets and ice cream pies are in development, Hoffman said. He may also sell coffee.

Will longtime customers taste a difference? Yes, Hoffman said. "I think they'll probably think it's better." He's removing any artificial flavors and boosting the butterfat content from 12 to 18 percent.

If anybody will notice the difference, it will be Dorothy Van Balen, who started going to the Old Meeting House in the late 1940s.

"It was such a neighborhood thing," said Van Balen, an 89-year-old retired teacher. "Every time you went in there, you saw somebody you knew."

She has fond memories of treating her children to Sunday evening ice cream and is eager to try the new location.

"That'll be wonderful," she said. "I'll be the first one to get out there."

[Last modified July 29, 2004, 12:31:15]