An old-fashion ice cream shop

Old School Ice Cream

and Scooby's Subs Scooby's Subs

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RALPH DEMILIO

There really is no such thing as a bad ice cream shop. But make no mistake, some ice cream shops are just better than others. You know, like one that offers the best ice cream in a lot more flavors. Or, one that is fun to go to – and not just because of the ice cream. Or, one that tries to give back to the community.

Or, one that does all of the above.

That’s Old School Ice Cream, located on Baseline Road, across from the Baseline Golf Course. Owned and operated by Beverly and Terry Angelotti since July 2019, Old School Ice Cream is much more than just an ice cream shop. Upon entering, it’s something of a step back in time.

“Yes, it’s just like an old-fashioned drug store ice cream counter,” Beverly said.

A perfect description. Beverly, whose husband, Terry, runs the adjoining Scooby’s Subs/Real Gourmet Subs, has filled her store with vintage ice cream shop memorabilia. So much so, that the walls are virtually covered with old scoops and vintage ice cream posters and there is a plethora of ice cream glassware as well.

How it got that way is a tale of new friendships and an unexpected common cause.

Beverly, who owned a pre-school in Broward County for 29 years and one in Ocala, Creative Beginnings Preschool (right next to the ice cream shop) for 10 years, initially planned to make the motif of her new venture reflect her years of running pre-schools. She was going to make it that of an old-fashioned schoolhouse. She even tried to buy an old one-room schoolhouse but had trouble finding one that was habitable or close enough to make it practical to move it to her land.

Nonetheless, while she looked for an available one-room schoolhouse – an effort that eventually was for naught – Beverly was buying old schoolhouse items, everything from benches to desks to rulers — all from right here in Marion County, she says. So, when she abandoned the dream of buying a one-room schoolhouse, she nonetheless proceeded with the “old school” theme, except in a modern store along Baseline Road.

Today, when you enter Old School Ice Cream, you will be greeted by old-fashioned desks, benches and an array of old school memorabilia.

But there’s more. Through a mutual friend, Beverly met Jim Phillips. They got to talking about what the Angelottis were doing and Phillips, a retired chief assistant state attorney, said he thought he could help with the décor in a special way. In fact, he was sure he could. Boy, could he.

Turns out, Phillips is a collector of ice cream parlor memorabilia. Just his collection of antique ice cream scoops totals more than 300 of all sizes, shapes and colors. Phillips started putting some of his items on display at Old School Ice Cream. Beverly said it blended in perfectly with the old schoolhouse items, and people started to take notice.

“A customer came in one day and said, ‘This looks like a museum,’” she said. “So, I told Jim that, and it gave him a place to display his stuff. Now we have every kind of ice cream memorabilia.”

Just one display of ice cream scoops located behind the cash register includes 134 of Phillips’s scoops. Yet, he still has hundreds, maybe thousands of other ice cream shop mementos in his collection at home.

Beverly says she is so grateful to Phillips and his wife, Connie, for helping make her ice cream shop so beautiful and memorable and giving parts of the ice cream memorabilia col-

Terry and Beverly Angelotti

Jim Philips

lection that they have spent 40 years amassing.

“I have no way to thank him for all he’s done for us,” she said of Phillips. “People love it. It gives them something to do while they’re waiting.”

To be sure, Old School Ice Cream is more than a cool place to visit. It offers three brands of top-grade ice cream – three dozen flavors of Blue Bell Ice Cream, two dozen flavors of Moo Moo Ice Cream and seven flavors of Dole Whip. Oh, and there’s Soft Serve, too.

And connected to the ice cream shop in the adjoining space is Scooby’s Subs/Real Gourmet Subs. In addition to subs, Scooby’s Subs sells deli sandwiches, soups, salads and snacks.

“Terry designed each and every sandwich on the menu,” Beverly said. “We went around and ate every sub we could before we opened.”

Beverly said the meats and vegetables are all fresh daily. Scooby’s Subs uses only the highest quality products and none of the meats contain any antibiotics, steroids or hormones.

Since opening Scooby’s Subs, Terry has added wings to the menu. There are 10 different sauces and wings can be purchased in servings of 10-50 wings.

“People know what they like,” Beverly said. “And when they come here and see the wings are bigger and cooked the way they are, they come back.”

The secret, she said, is Scooby’s Subs’ wings are not fried, but rather cooked in an air oven so they are more baked and grilled than fried.

The sub shop has its own museum atmosphere, too.

It’s a “sub”marine sandwich, so the theme is submarines, and customers have sent the Angelottis dozens upon dozens of vintage postcard-size pictures of subs from World War II and America’s other wars, as well as models of subs.

Maybe even more impressive is the collection Coca-Cola memorabilia that is stacked (cases of vintage Coke bottles), hung (vintage Coke signs and posters on the walls) and scattered (Coke items on tables and shelves) throughout Scooby’s Subs. Beverly said the Coke memorabilia, like the ice cream items, were loaned by friends.

As testament to the quality of Scooby’s subs, when they opened nearly two years ago, there was a Subway sandwich shop right next door. It is no longer in business, to which Beverly says, “There is no comparison to Subway and what we’re selling.”

For Beverly and Terry Angelotti, owning the businesses means also giving back to the community. One way Beverly is trying to do that is through a tip chest that sits on the Old School Ice Cream counter top. She

Beverly Angelotti

lets the tips build up and recently gave each of the two high school students who work in the shop after school and on weekends $1,500 scholarship checks.

Again, there really is no such thing as a bad ice cream shop – or a gourmet sub shop, for that matter. But Old School Ice Cream and Scooby’s Subs are different because they not only provide their customers the highest quality of food but also a museum-like atmosphere that makes good eats good fun, too.