Downtown Oswego once again home to ice cream shop

Oswego residents are evidently happy that the village’s downtown once again has an ice cream shop.

Shortly after opening in May, The Scoop had to close for a short time because the store ran out of ice cream.

“We sold out of all of our product and our ice cream vendor could not get us ice cream,” said Christina Reynolds, who co-owns The Scoop with Kelley Rice.

The Scoop is located at 108 Main St. in downtown Oswego and is across the street from the Dairy Barn, an ice cream shop which closed its doors last year. The Dairy Barn was built on the site that previously housed the longtime ice cream shop Dairy Hut, which closed in August 2019.

“It’s all made the day before we get it delivered, so it’s all very fresh ice cream.”

—  The Scoop co-owner Kelley Rice

The Scoop opened on May 27 during the Memorial Day weekend and customers were literally lined up to get into the store.

“There were lines down the street,” Rice said.

On June 4, they announced on The Scoop’s Facebook page that the shop would have to close temporarily in order to restock. Customers had gobbled up 500 gallons of ice cream in a week’s time.

“We expected a good turnout, but we didn’t expect to run out of ice cream,” Rice said. “That’s a lot of ice cream.”

The store has already built up a base of regular customers.

“We have a couple of customers that were in every day for a week, trying different flavors,” Rice said.

Both Reynolds and Rice were already part of the business community in Oswego before opening The Scoop. Reynolds is an agent with American Family Insurance in Oswego and Rice owns Imagination Print & Design in Oswego. They both also live in the area.

Being so involved in the village, they both felt that an ice cream store could help Oswego.

“We are really involved in the area and just really felt this was the missing piece in the town,” Rice said. “It’s such a great downtown and we just wanted to make it better.”

The Scoop sells small batch handcrafted ice cream made at a creamery in Forest Park.

“It’s all made the day before we get it delivered, so it’s all very fresh ice cream,” Rice said.

The Scoop is firmly connected to the community. The names of two of the flavors reference the village’s two high schools.

Wolf Pack Tracks references the Oswego East High School Wolves and Always a Panther references the Oswego High School Panthers. But all of the flavors at the store have gone over well.

“We can’t keep any of them in stock for a long period of time,” Reynolds said. “We’ve had to restock every single one of them multiple times.”

The Hometown Scoop – pink and blue swirled cotton candy ice cream with cotton candy sparkles – has proven to be a popular flavor among kids.

Not surprisingly, The Scoop was busy during the recent PrairieFest Parade in downtown Oswego.

“It was very busy,” Reynolds said. “There were a lot of people stopping in.”

In addition to selling ice cream, The Scoop also sells birthday cakes and ice cream sandwiches along with a variety of candy, including lollipops, old-fashioned gum and gummy bears. The store also sells books, half of them written by local authors.

“In the fall, we’re going to do author readings,” Rice said.

She said the author readings will help enhance the sense of community they are trying to create.

“We really love this community and we wanted to bring in the local authors to give it that hometown feel,” she said.

More information about The Scoop is available by going to its Facebook page, facebook.com/thescooposwego.