Friendswood Ice Cream Parlor Is Ready to Serve Up Nostalgia in a 1926 Home

The Friendswood Scoop Shop breathes new life into one of the town’s oldest homes.

Katie Chandler, 40, loves history, architecture, baking and creating new recipes. With her new small-batch ice cream shop, Chandler was able to bring all of those passions together in an idea she hopes will honor a part of the city’s past.

“There’s something special about being in a place that has history,” she said. “I’ve always loved old houses, old towns and pretty storefronts.”

Housed in a home built in 1926 and founded by Eddie and Zue Bales, two of the town’s most prominent early citizens, Friendswood Scoop Shop is a step back in time while offering something new to the community. It officially opens on July 30.

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The store will feature 16 rotating flavors and will introduce two new flavors every week and month.

Ice cream varieties will be sourced from local vendors to create flavors including cookie, coffee, caramel and pecan. To pay homage to the city’s agricultural roots, Chandler will even feature a fig ice cream on its menu.

The approximately 1,000-square-foot structure was purchased by Chandler in 2023 from its previous owner, who hoped to preserve it but was unsure what to do with it.

Enter Chandler, who is originally from Connecticut and whose love of restoring old homes runs in the family blood, she said.

The idea for the Friendswood Scoop Shop came after a trip to Wisconsin and a visit to a favorite ice cream parlor in that area.

“I realized Friendswood didn’t have a homemade ice cream shop, and it just came about naturally,” she said.

Chandler has always been a baker, but “ice cream parlor” has become a new title imbued with its own nostalgia, she said. She joined a national ice cream parlor association and began training in October of last year, and sought out the best equipment at Emery Thompson, a maker of frozen desserts for more than a century.

But she also reached out to her favorite childhood ice cream parlor in Connecticut.

“The manager of this store is still the same as when I was little,” she said.

She asked questions like, “What kind of cocoa powder did he use for his chocolates?” and “How many employees did he have?”

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Chandler, who has a background in advertising, developed a 30-page business plan, complete with her own drawings and renderings of what she envisioned.

The house’s former owner was all for it, she said, because the store would honor its historical significance by opening it to the public.

The shop retains the original parquet flooring, clapboard walls and ceilings of the house, and has been outfitted with wooden booths, an old-fashioned counter and even a children’s horse-drawn carousel. Music from the 1940s and ’50s will be played on refurbished radios.

“It’s been really fun and my creativity is always flowing, trying to come up with new things or little things we can do to make it special and feel like we’re living in the 1920s,” Chandler said.

The vibe is nostalgic but with a renewed focus on giving Friendswood a neighborhood gathering place and an open-door policy on some of its history outside of a formal museum, Chandler said.

“A lot of people who grew up here say they always wondered what this house looked like,” she said. “I thought it would be interesting for people to come and see it and have a space where they can gather and spend time. It’s more than a museum.”