4S Dairy Barn tops ice cream with a little nostalgia
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The preferred snack for the family of Doug and Kelly Schimp is ice cream. It is not unusual for 5 gallons of it to be in the house.
Apparently, Eldorado shares the Schimp's tastes -- at least during the hottest days of June. On June 22 the Schimp's 4S Dairy Barn opened on State Street and the lines have been stretching to the street.
"It turned out beautifully, just what I wanted, with parents out with their children and grandparents. I want good memories," Kelly Schimp, Eldorado Elementary School teacher and 4S Dairy Barn owner, said.
Schimp said her husband, Doug, had been wanting to open a business so they bought the former car wash on State Street, tore it down in October and built their red barn-shaped building beginning in January.
The business fills a need in Eldorado: A wide variety of ice cream and frozen yogurt styles from the familiar banana split and soda floats to exotic concretes and Mr. Malty, the malted ice cream bar on a stick. Schimp said as of Friday the business had produced and sold 480 Mr. Malties.
Schimp's goal was also to please Eldoradoans' nostalgia for downtown businesses like the old walk-up Dairy Queen and the Chicken Coop Drive-In that formerly was at the site of the 4S Dairy Barn. The Web site of the Eldorado Memorial Library at www.eldorado.lib.il.us has a photo of the Chicken Coop taken in 1971 by Charles Hammond.
Doug, his father Kenneth "Papa Bud" and the Schimps' children Nick and Natalie are all among the 12 employees.
The business opens at 11 a.m. and runs to 10 p.m. seven days a week.
<ul>
<li>
DeNeal receives e-mail at http://bdeneal@yourclearwave.com.</li>
</ul>