For Scoops owner Mike Collins, Bloomfield was the perfect location to open a third ice-cream shop.
"Ice-cream shops need restaurants, and in Bloomfield, there are a lot of restaurants and people," says Collins. "People come to Bloomfield from all over."
With locations in Mount Lebanon and Brookline, Collins says he prefers neighborhood stores to the cookie-cutter mall environment. And while there's nothing particularly unique about the Scoops mini-chain, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Scoops promotes a quaint neighborhood-hangout vibe straight from the 1950s, employing local teenagers, and serving as a place for local residents and families to get together.
"It's hard to say what drives people to us," Collins says. "You can get ice cream at a lot of different places, but what's really important is to be providing good customer service."
His Bloomfield store, which opened in May, serves freshly made waffle cones with traditional Perry's and Hershey's hard ice cream and sherbet. In the future, Collins will add ice-cream cakes, which are a staple of his other stores, and Italian ice, since the new store's customers have requested it.
Beyond simple cones, there are specialty sundaes, including: grasshopper (mint-chocolate-chip ice cream, hot fudge and crushed Oreos); mocha madness (coffee ice cream, chocolate syrup and chocolate jimmies); and "nutty butty" (chocolate-peanut-butter ice cream, hot fudge and peanuts).
