Nancy Edmonds Hanson
Jess Malvin is looking for a new owner for the Moorhead Freez. (Photo/Nancy Hanson.)
The Moorhead Freez went on the market Monday – portending change for the beloved neighborhood ice cream shop that dates back to the 1960s.
“Putting it up for sale was a lot more emotional than I thought it would be,” co-owner Jess Malvin says. “I truly hope it will go to somebody who will keep it going as a business. But I don’t know if anyone else can ever love it as much as we have.”
“The Jesses” – Malvin and partner Jessica Verdi – have owned the Freez since 2019, when their former longtime boss, the late Duane Elofson, retired. But their ties to the little seasonal landmark go back much, much farther.
Both went to work for Elofson as Moorhead High School students, starting not so long after he’d bought the business in 1992. April 24 marked the 25th anniversary of the day teen-ager Verdi came on board to twirl cones and make sundaes for the kids and families who have always lined up at the window – some of them for several generations. It was also Malvin’s 36th birthday.
Malvin joined the TF family in 2002 at the same tender age. Both women have been involved with the business for well over half their lives.
The decision to sell, Malvin says, was very, very difficult: “Owning this place has always been my dream.” But a series of challenges, capped by her 3-year-old son’s diagnosis with a rare genetic disorder, forced their hand.
In October, just before the Jesses were about to close the deal to buy the building and property, Jess and her husband Andy heard the devastating diagnosis. After years of specialists and testing, a genetic analysis revealed their toddler son has 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. “A tiny section of his 22nd chromosome is missing,” she explained.
The rare and unpredictable syndrome can affect any system of the body. Children with 22q may have delayed growth and any of a galaxy of problems affecting the heart, immune system, learning, speech or behavior difficulties. It affects an estimated one in 4,000 people. “Since he was a year old, we could see wasn’t gaining weight or keeping up with other kids his age. At 3, he still wasn’t talking,” his mother reports. “I just have to have more time to spend with him and his sister Zoey,” who’s 6, “ not to mention Andy.” Her husband teaches freshman English and directs plays at DGF High School.
Though her energy may be limitless, she says she has faced the fact that there are only 24 hours in the day. Jess has spent as much as 40 hours a week at the Freez during its 6-month season. That’s on top of working full-time for the city of Dilworth as its administrative assistant. Her partner also works full-time in a non-ice-cream related career; she is a paralegal with the Aaland Law Firm in Fargo.
Their five years as owners have been bumpy ones. Severe late-winter weather delayed the opening of their first year for a month, as it did again this spring. In 2020 (“our year from hell”), they were hit, first, with the pandemic, then with construction of the 20/21st Street underpass, which scrambled access to the shop for the next two years. In July, vandals caused more than $70,000 in damage to the structure and the equipment and supplies inside. Finally, they lost their Tastee Freez franchise that fall because they couldn’t add a drive-through to the property.
“But the community came through for us every time,” she emphasizes. A GoFundMe campaign raised the funds they needed for repairs. Customers continued to find their way through the maze of construction. The 60-year-old TF sign atop the building was replaced with new neon proclaiming “The Freez.” And through it all, multi-generation families and teens and toddlers have kept lining up on warm summer days for their cones, sundaes, burgers, Monkey Tails and the rest of the store’s iconic treats.
“That’s what I’m going to miss the most – our customers,” Jess muses. “I’ve watched some of them grow up and come back with kids of their own. I love them.
“Them, and our employees. I truly care about them. We’re like a family. Kids who started working here in high school may be all grown up now, but we still keep in touch … and I think we always will.”
The Freez, 410 19th St. S., is currently open six days a week: from 4 to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 11 to 9 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 9 p.m. Sunday. After Memorial Day, the shop will open at 11 a.m. and close at 10 p.m.