Chattanooga Pulse

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream…and gourmet coffee? It seems to work for Roger and Lynda Curtis, owners of The Ice Cream Show.  In fact, according to Roger, it has helped create one of their slogans: “The secret’s in the combination.”  The combination can be many things to many people—anyone who comes in has the opportunity to build their own flavor.  But in the minds of the owners, the winning combination is ice cream and coffee.  Says Roger, “I think if you have an ice cream in one hand and a coffee in the other, that’s a balanced diet.”

It certainly seems to be working for the Curtises. The Ice Cream Show, located at the south end of the Walnut Street Walking Bridge, is the fourth store of its kind they’ve opened.  About eight years ago, Roger, who was teaching at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, and Lynda, who worked in the library of an elementary school, decided it was time for a change.  They were invited to Grand Rapids, Michigan to the 25th anniversary of a church they had been involved in years before.  While there, they visited a coffee shop owned by the brother of the friend they were visiting.  They fell in love.  On their trip back to Greenville, they made the decision to open a coffee shop. And not just any coffee shop.  They wanted to open a shop that catered to all ages.

Once back in Greenville, they went to work.  With research, they were lucky enough to find a spot in Greenville’s west end, an area slated for revitalization.  Shortly after that, the Curtises were vacationing in a small town in North Carolina with their daughter and she smelled waffle cones baking.   “Our intent was just to have a coffee shop.  We’d be bankrupt by now if we’d done that,” says Roger, “but I really think God led us to that store that day.”  That was the day the Curtises first saw the particular type of blending machine they would use, and their fate was sealed.

The Curtises contacted the company in Geneva, Switzerland that makes the machines and arranged to have them in their store.  The particular way these machines blend is what makes The Ice Cream Show’s ice cream so amazing.   The process is pretty amazing as well.  The Ice Cream Show has chocolate or vanilla ice cream, chocolate or vanilla frozen yogurt, and vanilla sugar-free ice cream—and 40 different fresh ingredients, which totals up to more than 17,000 flavors.  Yep, you read that right: seventeen THOUSAND flavors.  They’ve actually come up with a mathematical equation based on up to three ingredients added per flavor.

The Ice Cream Show has had some unique requests for flavors, including blackberry rum and raisin and mango chocolate, but they do try to steer customers away from making a combination so outlandish that it doesn’t taste good.  Their most popular flavor?  Strawberry Cheesecake.   And it’s not just the flavor combinations that make The Ice Cream Show’s ice cream so special.  The process works like this: First they scoop hard-packed ice cream into the blending machine, then add only the freshest and best ingredients (like fruits frozen fresh on the farm and cheesecake bites from The Cheesecake Factory) and blend them together to get a smooth, soft-serve treat…in just seconds!  Roger and Lynda Curtis set out to change the way you view ice cream, and they’re doing it, scoop by scoop.

The Ice Cream Show is located at 105 Walnut St, just south of the Walnut Street Walking Bridge.