A MERIDEN

TRADITION

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THE HISTORY

In 1952 Tony Fontanella and Ray Dubuc made a joint venture on a Dari Delite franchise. Soft Serve ice cream stands were the new hit. A few years later the business was sold to Les Anderson who made the iconic name change and it's been Les' Dairy Bar ever since. We've heard Les was the man who would give a cone to a kid who forgot their Nickle, sold Christmas trees in the parking lot, and every good little league game was celebrated with a walk down the block to get some ice cream.

Rose and Albert DiGiandomenico bought the ice cream parlor in 1976 and gave control to their daughter Deb DiGiandomenico in the 1980s who helped the business flourish for the next 38 years. Deb perfected the art of cleaning and maintaining the intricate machines. She also found a way to maximize the small square footage and fit more soft serve machines inside the building to keep up with demand.

After almost 40 years of lifting 5 gallon buckets of real peanut butter weekly and disassembling-cleaning-reassembling 4 different ice cream machines daily, retirement was beckoning. While looking for the right buyer to take over the business, Deb decided to open for one more season in the Spring of 2020. Covid-19 made a dramatic change in how the business could operate, not to mention putting Deb herself, her employees, and customers at potential health risks. A difficult start to the season led to a brief closure while she remained unsure of keeping the business going.

OUR FAMILY BUSINESS

2020 brought many changes to all our lives. In March we cancelled the small gathering for our daughter's first birthday. I'm sure we were among many with cancelled plans that year. Our jobs were terminated or put on hold. What was supposed to be a few weeks in Connecticut turned into months and ended up working out with owning and operating an ice cream shop!

A few seasons in, many repairs, a new machine, and a second kid later. We're starting to get the hang of things and always keep a spare box of shots (sprinkles to some of you) in the shop and usually in the car.

Rob Hamilton made this all happen. We couldn't have made the move or the purchase without his help and guidance. Unfortunately the pandemic disease that brought us closer to family in Connecticut also took Rob away from our lives in 2021.

Rob's love of his hometown brought us here and we think of him every day. His favorite was a large vanilla cone with walnuts and we're sure he would have bought many a round of cones for our dear friends here in Meriden.