Sweet, Soft Opening at Full Tilt

Today we were privileged to attend the extremely soft opening of Full Tilt Ice Cream in Columbia City, which we have been anticipating in earnest for at least six months. Hard as the delays have been on us, they've been far worse, of course, for our friends Ken & Lenore, who have been trying to get the place open all this time, watching the hot, sunny, potentially lucrative days of summer dribbling by. Along the way we've heard hints and tidbits about the wild goose chase for space, and later the nightmarish permitting process. At first they were hoping to be open in June... then by July 4th... then for Light Rail's opening weekend... then this Tuesday, then yesterday... and then this morning as I dropped Simon off to play with their son for the day, I saw Ken loading up his car with a promising selection of gear. He'd been hard at work since his brother Rob drove in from Pennsylvania at 3:30 Tuesday morning, and he said firmly, "This afternoon for sure..."

So Josie & I wandered over to Full Tilt at about 2:30, along with a surprising number of other people who seemed to have sensed that something momentous was about to occur in the unassuming little strip mall just south of town. We arrived to find Sean the floor guy putting the finishing touches on his incredible linoleum artwork,



while his daughter wrote up the menu on a piece of cardboard so they could post it on the wall.


No signage, no tables, and the freezer was bare... but Ken said they'd be open within the hour, so we hung around with our friend Trina (who was wearing white gogo boots in honor of the occasion), while Mr. Lee finished up the last of the plumbing and Rob loaded the ice cream into the freezer.

The subtle transition from Not Quite Ready to Open for Business went like this: Paul walked up to the counter and assumed the ice-cream perusing position, and Ken started telling him what the flavors were.


and the next thing we knew


Paul had a mouth full of cold, creamy, mint chocolate chip. Yum!

Then it was my turn. Ken had to ask me three times what flavor I wanted because he kept forgetting between the time he reached for the cone and the time he picked up the scoop... (I have a feeling he's going to sleep well tonight!)

We didn't get to try all the flavors, but I can tell you that the Ube (purple yam) was delicious, the Coconut was sublime, and the Birthday Cake (with sprinkles) went over well with the under 5' set. The Horchata (a Mexican rice-cinnamon-almond concoction) got rave reviews too.

When we dragged Simon away from the pinball so we could take Josie to rollerderby practice, we looked back to survey the scene. Ken had just slipped the "OPEN" sign into the window, but it would be pretty easy to walk by this establishment and not fully grasp the fantastic pleasures available inside.

And yet... Every smiling person ambling through town licking an ice cream cone was a walking advertisement, and we had a feeling word would get out somehow.