It's 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon, and the door to Beaver's newest ice-cream shop, Witch Flavor, hasn't stopped opening and closing since I got here.
"It's really busy on the weekends," says co-owner Lisa Ragazzini, when asked if the steady walk-in traffic is the norm for a weekday afternoon.
She and her business partner John Biondi, a lawyer by trade, fulfilled a long-time dream of owning a business by opening their ice-cream store on Father's Day weekend. And they did it in a big way: by offering an almost impossible-to-get commodity in these parts -- ice cream from the Penn State Creamery.
"We don't know anything about making ice cream," explains Biondi. "We knew that if we did this, we had to serve ice cream from the Penn State Creamery. It's just the best ice cream you've ever tasted."
Biondi and Ragazzini traveled to Penn State and made an arrangement to serve the ice cream in their shop. But don't call Witch Flavor a franchise -- it just serves the school's product. Once a week, Biondi drives to State College and brings back 16 flavors, never knowing which ones will be available until he arrives.
"We wanted a whimsical name to be sure, so we went with the witch theme," Biondi says. "But what it really stands for is which flavors they have, are which flavors we get."
The uncertainty, he says, "adds to the fun."
588 Third St., Beaver. 724-775-CONE (2663)
