An ice cream dream comes true
PEQUOT LAKES -- An hour before Boardwalk Scoops & Victorian Gardens was set to open, people kept coming to the door and knocking.
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Owner Elaine Yablonsky went to the door each time unable to turn them away and began making ice cream cones in Boardwalk's own waffle cones.
A couple from Chicago strolled by the garden area outside and bicycle riders from Michigan's Upper Peninsula picked cone flavors from a list that includes blueberry cheesecake and cotton candy.
Giant glass jars of saltwater taffy in nearly every color and flavor, including keylime, raspberry lemonade and grape swirl, stand along one section along with giant gum balls and malted milk balls.
There are candies from Denver, chocolate fish from Italy, green and fruit tea, bottles of honey and hobnail glass. Colorful cookie platters, stuffed animals, books -- including a book by Yablonsky titled "Free Falling, poems and photographs."
Yablonsky, widowed 23 years ago, raised three children and worked for Control Data before she got into real estate investments. She said when she started working with a partnership that involved her late husband she was the type of person who couldn't balance a checkbook.
Today is national Ice Cream Day and Yablonsky planned to provide free cookies with ice cream orders. The shop is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily for the summer hours. Yablonsky said the business will remain open through Christmas with a likely change in hours to reflect the season and then take a winter break with a shutdown for January and February before reopening May 1. If there is demand Yablonsky said they may open in April.
"My message is you can do whatever you need to in this world," she said. "This place is a testimony for doing things -- I think -- for the right reason, to make beauty and make people happy."
Yablonsky moved to the area from the Twin Cities more than 10 years ago. She found the land on the corner of Government and Oriole streets in Pequot Lakes about three-and-a-half years ago and wanted to build a Victorian building and lease space to individual businesses and retain a spot for herself. Then the economy changed.
"It didn't seem feasible," she said of the project. Then a friend visited on a vacation and said you should put an ice cream shop there.
"From that moment on I knew that is what I was going to do," Yablonsky said. She continued with her Victorian theme and scaled back on the building's size. The shop is 1,000 square feet.
She included a park that is open to the community. Globe lights, park benches and flower-filled window boxes all add to the theme.
Tobias Bye, a Norwegian immigrant, lived on the land with his family for many years beginning in the 1930s until he died in 1947. His wife, Caroline died in 1958. Yablonsky donated the little white house that once stood there to Habitat for Humanity.
Boardwalk Scoops & Victorian Gardens opened this spring on the corner of Oriole and Government streets in Pequot Lakes. Banners outside sport the message "Eat More Ice Cream" and a carved cone is nearby. The business includes candy, gifts, garden and, of course, many ice cream flavors. (Dispatch Photos by Renee Richardson)
She made a point with builders that she wanted to retain all 16 of the pine trees, nearly 100 years old, on the property and did not have to remove a single tree for the development.
Joe Grecula, East Gull Lake, designed the building and helped plan the gardens with Yablonsky. They drew plans on a napkin and worked without blueprints.
Now the business employs seven mostly part-time employees. Yablonsky said 85 percent of the gifts in the store are one-of-a-kind items and personally chosen by her. She said she gets the call from suppliers when they have one or two cookie platters left. Hank's beverages from Philadelphia was chosen for a soda pop that was similar to sarsaparilla to reflect the Victorian theme.
"Most of the stuff you can get here you are not going to find anywhere else," she said.
The business has been open about seven weeks and Yablonsky said she never thought about the money part of it but she hoped to have enough to pay the bills and she wanted to create a place to enrich the senses.
No trees were removed to add the business and a Victorian garden wraps around the building with globe lights, gazebo, benches, flowers and patio eating area.
"I think we are," she said. "I hope we are."
Additions to come include deli sandwiches and chips beginning Labor Day weekend. Other options may include bagels for breakfast. Yablonsky said she is willing to try those features and see how customers react.
A sign outside claims "the world needs more ice cream."
Today is national Ice Cream Day and Yablonsky planned to provide free cookies with ice cream orders. The shop is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily for the summer hours. Yablonsky said the business will remain open through Christmas with a likely change in hours to reflect the season and then take a winter break with a shutdown for January and February before reopening May 1. If there is demand Yablonsky said they may open in April.
What amazes Yablonsky and Angela Crowell, general manager, are the bits of serendipity. Such as the day they wondered about putting an ice cream icon of some sort outside and then having a woodcarver call and offer his services out of the blue with the same idea of creating a giant ice cream cone.
And a Brown's Velvet Ice Cream sales representative called the shop when they saw early activity at the building location and said Yablonsky had to try their product. She had been looking at another line but changed her mind after trying the ice cream and has customers telling her it was a good pick. They also sell quart ice cream. And they put almost a pound of ice cream into their malts. It's not unusual to have employees taking photos of banana split creations.
One day Yablonsky thought a customer looked familiar and asked if he had a son working at Abbott Northwestern Hospital. She said the son saved her life when she had a burst appendix. She now has a thought that sooner or later everyone will pass through the front doors.
"It's much more than a business," she said.