Mabel, Lydia, Ida, Will and Flannery Chambers
Sweet Eats Little Ladies Soft Serve brings its creative ice-cream creations to Polaris this fall By Linda Lee Baird | Photography by Elli Jo Moehrman
I
t takes a leap of faith to buy an old mail truck over the internet, sight unseen, to be the centerpiece of your new family business. Yet that’s exactly what Lydia and Will Chambers did in 2017, when they purchased the truck that would soon start a new life as the anchor of Little Ladies Soft Serve. With toppings including everything from Fruity Pebbles to chopped pretzels to puppy chow, Little Ladies serves sundaes with unforgettable flourishes that bring neighbors to line up around the block.
The birth of a baby, and an idea
While most ice cream trucks generally start packing up for the season around Labor Day, the end of summer 2021 marks a reason for the Chambers to start unpacking—loading supplies and surplus ingredients from the ice cream truck into their new Polaris-area store. There, they will continue selling the whimsical sundaes that have made Little Ladies Soft Serve beloved across the Columbus neighborhoods it has visited regularly since 2018.
There were several practical reasons for starting an ice cream truck. For one thing, the needs were less complex than for other food trucks, which meant they could restore the truck themselves. “I knew that Will, my husband, could build it. And ... it’s not a food truck, so we knew that the build-out would be simple enough, something that he could figure out on his own,” she explains.
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FALL 2021
When Lydia and Will’s first daughter was born, Lydia began thinking about careers that would allow the two of them to spend time together while she was young. Lydia had a background in cooking, and a visit to the mobile vendors at the Worthington Farmers Market helped narrow her focus to a food truck. At first, she considered selling donuts and other baked goods. Then, she thought of ice cream and knew she’d found her niche.
