#88 - Savor a 'Scooop' (or Three) of Simpler Times

Across from the gazebo in the village of Malverne is a small, retro ice cream shop that promises to take its customers back to “the simpler times.”

Surrounded by Betty Boop dolls, G.I. Joes and other classic toys from the fifties through the nineties, kids and adults can doodle on the chalkboard table-tops, watch re-runs of “Leave It To Beaver” and indulge in delicious frozen treats at Scooop.

Yes, that’s Scooop with three “o’s."

“Many people think it’s a typo,” says owner John Angelis, who opened the shop in August 2010 with his wife Diane. “The three “o’s” represent our three boys.”

Angelis moved his family to Malverne 14 years, when his youngest son was only 1, to escape the congestion and city streets of Queens. They were searching for that  “small-town feel” in the suburbs, scouring Long Island for a safe and friendly community to raise their kids when just as they were about to give up, a friend pointed them to Malverne.

“My wife fell in love with it immediately,” Angelis recalled. “We bought the house the same day we looked at it.”

Yet as children so often do, the Angelis boys started to grow up. All three graduated from James A. Dever Elementary School and moved on to Kellenberg, and the two oldest headed off to college.

While Angelis continued to spend his days working for the New York Stock Exchange and his nights running restaurants including Nick’s Pizza in Rockville Centre, Diane, a stay-at-home mom, had plenty of newfound time on her hands.

When she learned that the family’s favorite local ice scream shop, Chrystal Ice, in Malverne was closing down for good, she urged her husband to buy the store. The Angelis family had many warm memories of enjoying cold treats at the neighborhood shop, which was just a short stroll from their house.

“We always loved the place,” Angelis said, who soon found himself as the proud owner of the store on Church Street. “It was an ideal fit for us…my wife loves being around kids and being in the neighborhood. She doesn’t need to work [but] this is an opportunity for her.”

They opened up Scooop in August 2010, serving customers for only a few weeks before shutting down for the fall/winter season.  In that short time though locals could already see that the name was not the only thing the Angelis changed about the ice cream shop. They added much of their own personalities into the place. The store is filled with toys and memorabilia that John and his wife cherished from their childhoods and even some that their kids grew up with.

“I wanted to bring people back to simpler times and for me that was my childhood,” Angelis said, recalling the days he spent as a kid in the pizzerias and diners his family owned. “Whenever I eat ice cream it makes me feel like a kid again.”

As for the décor, Angelis had some of it tucked away in boxes in his home like time capsules, the rest he had to purchase.

“My mom had given most of my toys away when I went into the Army, so I had to buy a lot of it,” he said.

Adding to the retro experience is a small T.V. that plays only black-and-white shows that Angelis and his wife grew up watching including the Brady Bunch, Little Rascals and the Three Stooges. Plus, the tabletops have been turned into chalkboards that allow customers to get creative.

The classic shows he credits to his wife, while Angelis said the idea to let customers draw on the tables came to him when he recalled spending Sundays playing with sugar packets to pass away the time in his family’s diner.

“Parents and kids, it doesn’t really matter how old they are, just start doodling,” he says of his clientele.

They also added frozen yogurt to the menu, using the soft serve machine left behind from the previous owners. On any given day, customers can enjoy vanilla and a special flavor of the week including red velvet, peanut butter and cookies and cream – all 100 percent fat free.

For those looking for more decadent desserts, there are 24 flavors of ice cream, over 40 toppings and several signature sundaes including the popular Nutty Professor. Steve’s Ice Cream, a small Long-Island based company, makes all the ice cream fresh weekly, including some special flavors customized for Scooop.

Plus, you can order ices (There are 16 flavors.), floats, shakes, old-fashioned egg creams and frozen coffee drinks including Angelis' creation, the Scooopacino. The kids also love purchasing Coco-Cola from the store because the soda pop comes in small vintage-style glass bottles, which they can open themselves using a bottle opener that hangs on the wall.

“They buy the drink mainly just to open it,” Angelis said with a laugh.

As for his wife, Angelis says she seems to be enjoying her new job, adding that she frequently rides her bike to work at the shop.

“There’s no bad days in the ice cream business,” he said. “The biggest calamity is when a kid licks the top scoop off his cone and it falls on the floor…and then you just give him a new one.”

Scooop re-opened for business on March 20 – the first day of spring. Currently they are open Mondays through Thursdays from 2:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., Fridays from 2:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., Saturdays 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Sundays 2:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. As the schools start closing though they will shift to an extended schedule, opening earlier in the afternoon and serving customers till 10 p.m. daily.

To stay connected to the latest happenings at the store, become a fan of the Scooop Facebook page.