For many, Kline's trip beats the heat

People seek socialization, relaxation, treat

Staunton News Leader - July, 27 2002

By Dawn Medley, staff writer

STAUNTON - Almost every establishment surrounding Kline's Dairy Bar on Greenville Avenue sells ice cream.

But Kline's, which sells only old-fashioned ice cream and only the concoctions that can be made using three flavors of it: choclate, vanilla and the flavor of the week - flourishes.

In the middle of the fast food restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations and car dealerships, a sweet, syrupy, banana-tinged smell spills out of two sliding glass windows, into the covered pavilion and the parking lot. On most summer nights, the lines of customers spill onto the parking lot, too, but three or four teenagers behind the sign of a dripping ice cream cone are scooping the smooth treat from big metal tubs like it is nobody's business.

Some come to Kline's for the open atmosphere; some say it's because there is no better ice cream in town; and some because the claim they never stop in without seeing a friend.

Kline's small-business status and the smiling faces of local students at the window have become a Staunton trademark and the often sub-conscious decision is that money spent on ice cream in the city should benefit a locally owned business.

Kline's serves 60 gallons of ice cream on a typical day.

"We used to get to sit down and talk and kind of goof around in the other building, but now it's like this every night," said Ashley Withers, a rising sophomore at Virginia Tech who is working her fourth summer at Kline's.

It is a Wednesday night, when the typical mid-week slump is countered by people's mad dash to have a last taste or stock up with a gallon of the flavor of the week before it changes on Thursday.

"I need a kiddie and a quart," Withers directs to her co-worker Drew Schwemer, the night's "floater" who doesn't work a window.

The window closes tightly shut with a snap to keep it refrigerator-cold in the work area and probably to keep the Eminem song on the CD player from reaching customer's ears.

Holding up to three waffle, sugar or regular cones in one hand, Withers scoops, drops it in the cone and swirls - partially to get the super-soft ice cream off the scoop and partially to get the trademark curlicue at the top. Without the curlicue, it would just be a blob.

Business at Kline's has grown 40 percent since the business moved just down the street to an open-air pavilion in the building that used to be Gavid's Family Grill. Owner Kim Arehart was optimistic about the change in July 2001.

"If things went like I thought they would go when I first started in Staunton, I thought I would need to move to a bigger space in a few years, and that is what has happened," Arehart said.

The original Kline's at 58 Wolfe Street in Harrisonburg has been a family business since 1943, but the nostalgic walk-up window has been a Staunton fixture just since 1996, when Arehart decided to branch out under her brother's wing.

She is considering running the business year-round next year.

Offering just three flavors helps streamline service for heat-beating customers, but it is also a necessity for the fresh, homemade product.

Finally turning off the mixers at the back of the building after 2 p.m. Wednesday, daytime manager Liz Lawhorne hoped she made enough chocolate, vanilla and lemon to last until closing at 11 p.m.

"The difference is that we make it fresh here every day, and that's why people expect ours to be better," said Lawhorne, who has worked at Kline's since it opened.

Lawhorne spent the morning and afternoon making ice cream using the "continuous freeze" process, which has become nearly obsolete in favor of the more profitable soft serve and batch methods.

Soft serve and batch methods can produce several times more ice cream because air is added as the ice cream is whipped. With continuous freeze, very little air is added, yielding only about 10 gallons an hour. The rotating menu helps attract people week after week because flavors only make an appearance once or twice a summer.

Everyone has a favorite flavor. Stacey Mooneyham's is cherry nut, a flavor that was just introduced a few years ago. Mooneyham said she and her family visit the dairy bar about once a week and they always run in to someone they know.

"I would rather be here than in a restaurant ... and the ice cream is real good, but it's more the experience than the ice cream," she said, looking to a friend she ran into that night for confirmation.

Jan Saxman is partial to raspberry and her husband, Bill, to peach. They bought a gallon of raspberry to take to their daughter on the last day of Kline's season last year.

"It really has become a Staunton 'thing.' For us, it doesn't really matter that it's summer, we come from March until December," Jan Saxman said.

Lee High School students Adam Houff and Jessica Marino were holding off on ice cream Wednesday. The flavors catching their eyes appeared not to be on the menu, but at the table of animated teenagers.

The girls smooshed together on one side of the stainless steel table and the boys postured on the other side.

"There's no place else like this. I like the inside, outside atmosphere ... it's better than cruising the 'avenue,'" Houff said.