Emilee Prado
For over a decade, The Ice Cream Place has provided delicious flavors, big smiles and happy memories to families and children on Southlake Boulevard. Manager Mary Frolov (pictured with employee Sophie Walters) has been with the sweet shop for more than a year now, and she loves welcoming whoever walks through the shop’s doors — a passion she shares with The Ice Cream Place’s late owner Jerry Connell who opened the store 13 years ago. And with the help of Mary’s brother-in-law Andy, the pair work to provide the same classic ice cream parlor experiences The Ice Cream Place is most known for.
I MOVED TO TEXAS… five years ago. I used to live in Kansas, and it was much colder there. I wanted a change of scenery and a bigger state, and Texas had exactly what my family and I were looking for.
I WORKED… at private schools for three years. I was a culinary and pastry chef, and I served about 4,000 kids daily. I was up at 5 a.m. to make sure everything was ready before 7 a.m. and worked through breakfast, lunch and dinner. Working in the kitchen was so busy and fast-paced, but it was a good experience. I was still having fun. I just love kids, and I love working with them.
THE ICE CREAM PLACE… has been open since 2007. It was run for many years by Jerry Connell, who originally opened it as a place to hang out with his grandkids. My brother-in-law Andy spent so much time with Jerry here. He’d eat ice cream almost every day, one scoop for almost eight years.
JERRY PASSED AWAY… in 2017. Andy bought the place a year and six months ago to keep his friend’s business alive. If this place didn’t continue, Andy would really be missing this ice cream himself. I wanted to work somewhere more family oriented, so he hired me as The Ice Cream Place’s manager around the same time. It’s not like a school environment where there are 1,000 kids to serve all at the same time. This is a little more slow, relaxing, easy and fun.
THE ICE CREAM… is shipped from a small company in Florida and made with fresh ingredients, fruits and non-artificial syrups. Our strawberry is made out of real strawberries, for instance, and so is our chocolate raspberry truffle. We keep this place the way Jerry originally intended it, basically strictly ice cream, sundaes and milkshakes. We pretty much only cater to ice cream and ice cream cakes. That’s what makes us unique.
WE HAVE SO MUCH… variety. We have 32 flavors out front, and we keep up to 10 flavors in the freezer. The flavors up front are all the best-sellers, from chocolate to cookie dough to marshmallow. If customers ask for flavors we don’t have up front, we just pull it from the freezer and serve it from there. All of them are so tasty and unique, so you can switch back and forth until you narrow it down to like one or two favorites you really enjoy.
ONE POPULAR FLAVOR WE HAVE... is called Garbage Can. It’s ice cream mixed with seven different candy bars. It may sound kind of weird, but we throw everything into it.
MY FAVORITE FLAVOR… is called Eyes Wide Open. It’s an intense coffee-flavored ice cream. I don’t drink coffee at all during the day, but I’ll eat that ice cream any time.
I LOVE IT WHEN… people order ice cream cakes. They’re fresh and not pre-made. I make each of them from scratch, and they’re customized specifically to the customer and their own taste buds. My favorite part is doing the designing and writing on the cake to make it special. I put a lot of effort into the cakes, and when they grab it and come back two or three days later to get some ice cream, they tell me it was the best ice cream cake they ever had. The people, the kids, the customers and the guests are always amazed by it.
MY FAVORITE PART OF WORKING AT THE ICE CREAM PLACE... is direct contact with the customers. You know the families, the parents and their kids. You recognize people and you remember their names. You’re asking them how they’re doing instead of just serving them. It’s more interpersonal communication. You literally know everyone. It's a friendlier, more pleasurable place to work.