Cold comfort

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/06/2019 (2484 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s Father’s Day so let’s kick things off with a story about… dogs?

Ten years ago a homeowner in St. James opened his front door to let his cat in for the night. While the feline was taking its sweet time deciding whether to enter or not, the man’s two German shepherds bolted past him, disappearing down the street into the darkness.

Meanwhile, three blocks away at 2053 Portage Ave., John and Lynn Dusessoy, owners of Sargent Sundae, a cheery, neighbourhood ice cream parlour celebrating its 35th anniversary this July, were getting ready to close when they spotted a pair of pooches parked on the sidewalk in front of their premises, tails-a-wagging.

“We get a lot of dogs here, inside and on the patio, so I always keep a few leashes behind the counter, just in case,” says John, seated next to his wife, both of them wearing matching, red T-shirts emblazoned with an image of their Dudley Do-Right-esque mascot. “I approached them — they were friendly as heck — and after checking their tags, was able to get in touch with their much-relieved owner. As it turned out, he walks by here all the time and sometimes stops to treat his dogs to ice cream. So if those two finding their way here at 11 at night isn’t the best advertisement we could ever ask for, I don’t know what is.”

● ● ●

In 1984, John Dusessoy, a University of Manitoba commerce graduate, was working as an assistant accountant at a bank in Ponoka, Alta. Unsure he was cut out to be a banker, before leaving Winnipeg he told his father Julien Dusessoy, at the time the co-owner of a real estate firm, to keep his eyes open for any business opportunities that appeared promising. In March of that year, the elder Dusessoy gave his son a call, informing him there was a property for sale at the corner of Sargent Avenue and Sherbrook Street he might want to take a look at.

There was nothing there to see, just a vacant lot, John says, but over the phone his father surmised it would be an excellent location for an ice cream shop. Furthermore, his dad had already discussed the idea with his real estate partner’s husband, Roy Bowman, who was working for Silverwood Dairies but was about to get “the golden handshake.”

“To make a long story short, there we were a few weeks later, Roy with his extensive knowledge of the dairy industry and me with my commerce degree, co-owners of what we hoped was going to be a successful ice cream parlour,” John says.

Following a five-month construction period, Sargent Sundae, a tag the two men settled on largely to indicate precisely what thoroughfare their shop was situated on (their second choice for a name was the simian-sounding King Kone), officially opened for business July 7, 1984. Not long thereafter, a fellow who owned a nearby restaurant stuck his head inside and loudly announced, “Ice cream, huh? I give it two months tops.”

“I don’t know what he’s up to these days,” John says with a wink, “but I promise you we’re still going strong.”

From the get-go, the West End location proved to be ideal, says Lynn, whose sister used to own a flower shop on Sherbrook Street, a set of circumstances that directly led to her meeting her future husband, who discreetly whispered to his staff, “That’s OK, I’ll handle this customer’s order,” the first time she popped by for a milkshake in the mid-1980s.

“Back then it was a real melting pot of Greeks, Portuguese, Yugoslavians… you name it, where everybody owned their own homes, took pride in their yards and always had money left over for ice cream,” she says.

In 1987 John told his father it might be time to expand. While he and Bowman were able to make ends meet on Sargent Avenue, he wasn’t sure running one ice cream parlour between the two of them would generate enough income down the road if he ever decided to get married and start a family. Days later they inquired about renting the ground floor of a two-storey brick building directly across Portage Avenue from the Assiniboine Park footbridge, a couple doors down from where the elder Dusessoy worked.

“The location couldn’t be beat but it had sat vacant for two years and needed a complete overhaul,” John says of the former vacuum sales/repair shop. “During the renovation period, we basically took everything right down to the studs. Between new walls, new ceiling, flooring and equipment, we ended up spending a quarter of a million dollars to bring it up to shape. I don’t even want to know what that would come out to in today’s dollars.”

For the next nine years John operated the Portage Avenue outlet — no, they never considered dubbing it Portage Sundae to differentiate between the two locations — while Bowman remained at the original shop. They dissolved the West End operation in 1996, when Bowman announced he was going to retire. In 2001, after 14 years of renting their St. James space, John and Lynn, who purchased Bowman’s 50 per cent of the business in 1997, bought the building outright, which includes a second-floor, three bedroom suite, the long-time occupants of which enjoy an added perk: heavily discounted ice cream.

● ● ●

The Dusessoys wish they had a dollar for every time an ex-Winnipegger, a person who grew up coming to their shop with his or her parents, has approached their glass display counter, home to 24 varieties of hard ice cream, and stated, “I just got off a plane 30 minutes ago and this is the first place I came to, now that I’m back in town.” Or, with a cooler in tow, told them they were just heading home to Calgary, Toronto or wherever and were making a final pit stop for some peanut bars or tortoise pie, all made in-house, before driving to the airport.

“It sounds funny but people have a strong, emotional attachment to ice cream, the same way they do to their favourite burger or pizza joint. Why else would a person drive all the way to Lockport for a hotdog?” John says. “For example, tonight as a surprise I’m dropping off a bunch of frozen novelty items at a wedding reception for a bride and groom who’ve been coming here on dates for years. On a sadder note, people tell us this was their grandfather’s or aunt’s favourite spot, and how much it would mean to them if we served our ice cream at their loved one’s funeral.” (How great is this? While Sargent Sundae is annually closed from November to March, a woman who satisfied her pregnancy cravings there a few summers ago couldn’t wait until spring to share her good news, stopping in the middle of winter to write, “IT’S A GIRL!!” with her finger on the Dusessoys’ front window.)

“I’m not good with names, but if you come here often enough I almost never forget your order,” Lynn says, noting if things aren’t too busy and she eyes a regular parking their car out front, she’ll usually have their banana split or sundae ready before they set foot inside the door. “Lots of times John and I will be having supper and I’ll say something like, ‘Skor flurry lady was in today’ or ‘Guess what? Super vanilla guy dropped by this afternoon.’”

The ability to properly twist a cone or sprinkle nuts is essential when hiring new staff, John and Lynn agree, but a background in meteorology helps, too. Sure, there are going to be line-ups out the door and around the corner every Mother’s Day or Canada Day, they say, but because their chosen field is so weather-dependant, their busiest day of the year could be a Tuesday in September. Or a Wednesday in April.

“There was one spring a couple years ago when it got so hot, so fast, the entire week was just insane,” Lynn says, mentioning their two grown sons, 27 and 25, are now heavily involved in the business as well. “On the other hand, last summer when the temperature was in the high 30s for most of July — when most people thought we were being run off our feet — it wasn’t too crazy in here at all. When it’s scorching hot, people aren’t out walking their dogs or riding their bikes. They’re sitting inside with a cool one. A sunny day when the temperature’s in the mid-20s? That’s absolutely perfect.”

By the way, if you think a person who runs an ice cream parlour for a living habitually skips past the frozen food aisle at the supermarket, think again. Last August, on a rare day off, John and Lynn were at home entertaining company when somebody openly wondered if they had any ice cream.

“There wasn’t any in our freezer so I ran out to the store to pick up a carton,” Lynn says. “Except wouldn’t you know it; somebody who comes to the store all the time recognized me, and asked why in the world I was buying ice cream. I turned beet red, I was so embarrassed.”

David Sanderson writes about Winnipeg-centric businesses and restaurants.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca