A pretty sweet deal

New Mister Goodies brings signature homemade flavors to Boonsboro Road

It’s a relatively popular opinion: buying  cream is a lot like buying a cone full of happiness. And at Mister Goodies, customers help make it even happier.

Up and running in the Village Courts Shopping Center since mid-July, the newly opened Mister Goodies Homemade Ice Cream on Boonsboro Road has more than two dozen flavors to choose from, along with a small selection of Italian ice.

While many of the flavors are familiar to the average ice cream customer, some flavors have a unique twist.

“We threw brown sugar into the cookie dough [flavor] to give it that extra little kick; most places aren’t going to have that,” Boonsboro manager Richard Dean said. “It gave it a little extra flavor that was missing from our first couple of batches.”

Such is the beauty of Mister Goodies Homemade Ice Cream’s small-batch production system. If the flavor isn’t quite right the first time around, another batch can be made within a few days to reach peak flavor.

“If a customer says, ‘Hey, that doesn’t taste right,’ we can go back to the drawing board and figure out what’s missing from it. That’s actually what happened with the cookie dough,” Dean said.

Mister Goodies’ management welcomes customers’ opinions and encourages them to share their suggestions and ideas.

“We love taking flavor requests,” Dean said. “That’s how we got the peach [flavor] in here. So many people were blowing up the phone and Facebook saying, ‘We want peach,’ so we brought it in.”

The “Virginia Peach” is made with real Virginia-grown peaches from Saunders Brothers Farm Market in Nelson County. In fact, nearly all of Mister Goodies’ ingredients are fresh and locally sourced.

“We try to stay as fresh and natural as possible,” Dean said.

The Flight—a varied sampler for tasting and comparing flavors—is another popular menu item at the Boonsboro Mister Goodies.

“It’s the same concept as flights [of wine] at a vineyard, but with ice cream,” Dean said.

The four-flavor flight sampler—which equals about a pound of ice cream—is the perfect treat to share.

Each of Mister Goodies’ hand-scooped ice cream flavors — including their best-selling signature flavors “The ’03,” “The Rivermont” and “The O.M.G.”— and Italian ices are handcrafted at the shop on Boonsboro Road.

“It’s a fun process. You can get really creative with it,” Andrew Ulrich said.

Ulrich is Mister Goodies’ marketing director and the son of owners Doug and Rhonda Ulrich.

Customers can see the process for themselves through the kitchen’s viewing window, and many of the flavors are available for purchase in quarts and pints—another difference between the soft-serve trailer and the ice cream shop.

For the last 14 years, Mister Goodies has satisfied locals’ soft serve ice cream needs from its trailer on Timberlake Road. The new storefront on Boonsboro Road adds to its community reach and reputation, serving up the same quality ice cream.

“We thought a little ice cream shop would be perfect for a community like Boonsboro,” Ulrich said. “Nobody’s done homemade ice cream here yet, so we gave it a shot, and people are really appreciating it.”

The Ulrichs had tried for years to expand into this type of environment. But not to worry, Mister Goodies’ Timberlake site isn’t going anywhere. The company recently renewed the lease for another 15 years. Bigger and better things are on the way, according to Ulrich.

A new and improved Mister Goodies trailer is currently under construction in Ohio and is scheduled for delivery in October.

According to Ulrich, the new trailer will be 10 feet longer than the one currently set up on Timberlake Road, making room for an expanded menu and extra serving window; an industrial convection oven for cookies, brownies and other baked treats; and three heavy-duty ice cream machines: two for standard soft serve flavors and one specifically for rotating flavors of the day.

The new trailer is expected to be fully operational in the spring.

“We’ve had a lot of requests to open a third location with the old trailer, but nothing’s set in stone yet,” Ulrich said. “Hopefully one day we can branch out and have multiple locations—that’s our goal.”

With the same family-friendly atmosphere as the Timberlake location, Mister Goodies Homemade Ice Cream’s indoor/outdoor seating arrangements have made the shop a popular gathering space for college students.

“It’s a space where they can come relax, enjoy themselves and decompress from school,” Dean said. “We’ve even had a couple study groups come in. We love being able to be that type of place.”

For Ulrich, the gathering of Liberty students at the new ice cream shop is especially meaningful.

“Liberty has been so supportive of Mister Goodies from the beginning, and we’re so privileged to have that,” Ulrich said. “Mister Goodies has become the place to be for Liberty students. We wouldn’t be what we are without them.”

Students are encouraged to “like” Mister Goodies Homemade Ice Cream on Facebook, where updates on seasonal flavors, giveaways and other promotions and events are shared regularly.

 

ESTES is a feature reporter.