Jess Malvin, owner of the former Tastee Freez, is reopening the east Moorhead favorite slightly behind schedule. The March 30 opening allows for completion of more of the repair and upgrades required after a major vandalism incident last summer. (Photo/Russ Hanson.)

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Spring has sprung! While more conventional locales may celebrate the first day of Spring on March 20, Moorheaders welcome the season on a date of their own choosing – March 1, when the downtown Dairy Queen and the Tastee Freez a dozen blocks east serve up their first frosty delights.

Half of that ritual took place without a hitch Monday, with hundreds of soft-serve lovers taking their turn along Eighth Street to purchase the first Dilly Bar or cone of the season at Troy and Diane DeLeon’s 72-year-old DQ. But the troubles that first beset the Tastee Freez last July have delayed the opening of the store at 419 19th St. S. Fear not – it is coming. But the ice cream won’t begin filling cones until March 20.

Like the Dairy Queen, the Tastee Freez has heralded spring for generations of Moorhead families. The 60-year-old location, though, has been beset by multiple dilemmas since Jess Malvin and partner Jess Verdi purchased it from its founders in 2019. Nearby construction of the SE Main/20/21st Street underpass tangled local traffic. The ice cream machine – the heart of the business – died. COVID introduced precautions that ruled out normal walk-up window service. In July, vicious large-scale vandalism left the little building in shards and tatters; the vandals even tried to rip off the roof.

Then, to top it all off, last fall Jess got the final word from the Tastee Freez franchise: It was pulling the store’s license. “They said we needed a drive-through. Our location makes that almost impossible,” she recalls. “They wanted us to put in a state-of-the-art point-of-sale cash register and credit card system. We’re old-fashioned … we use pencil and paper. The bottom line? We just weren’t profitable enough for them.”

But even as she suffered blow after blow, the entrepreneur – who works full-time by day as the administrative assistant in the Dilworth city office – rays of light filtered through. “Every time something happened, our community came through for us,” she says. After the break-in, customer Jenna Kahly set up a Go Fund Me for repairs that eventually drew nearly 600 donations and more than $30,000. And in autumn, Jess woke up the day after Tastee Freez delivered its bad news to learn that her little store had been named Best Ice Cream Shop of the Red River Valley in The Forum’s annual poll.

News of the franchise being pulled was “devastating,” she says now. “I’ve been working here for almost 20 years, and my partner was even longer. I couldn’t imagine what we would do. I was really hurt and sad; in fact, I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”

Should she, could she go on? “I have two little ones, 4 and 18 months, and a full-time job,” she reflects. “But this is my love. I love this place! It’s my second home. When I have a bad day, I come here to cheer up.”

And, with her husband Andrew’s support, she moved forward. The badly damaged roof is being repaired (part of the reason for the delayed opening). The electrical system has been upgraded to code, and air conditioning has been added to replace the wheezing wall units that barely cooled the interior on hot summer days.

“We wanted to start the repairs in October, but finding a contractor was tough,” she says. “We’re too small for the big companies, but too big for the independents.” Yet that problem, too, was solved with the help of that GoFundMe campaign that sustained her.

The Tastee Freez sign still sits atop the roof, but most of it will be going soon. “We can use the neon ice cream cone, but have to cover up ‘Tastee Freez,’” she reports. Instead, the shop will be called simply The Freez. After getting permission from the former franchise, she’s now working out the state paperwork; a new logo is ready and waiting for its approval. She’s also dealing with the city on whether zoning permits construction of a small outbuilding where ice cream mix, frozen bars and other groceries can be stored securely.

Kids and families who pull up to the store’s familiar ordering windows will find most of what their hearts desire. “Our menu will be pretty much the same, though we do have to change a few names,” she promises.

She’s looking for employees, too: “Lots of the same people come back, but we always lose a few who graduate from college. We love our high school students, but we do need some who can work during school hours and take on some management.”

When the cones start rolling out the window, no one will celebrate more than Jess herself. “We didn’t want this. It wasn’t our decision,” she says of the loss of the franchise. “But I’m kind of excited to not have corporate telling me what to do. We can try some things and change it up a little.

“I’m very optimistic that everything will be great. The community’s support means so much to us.”