Ice cream shop keeps cool to show Pride
If you hurry, you can still make it to Deborah Ann’s Sweet Shoppe in Ridgefield for the this- month- only Pride ice cream, a sugary concoction that includes gummy Skittles and candy- coated chips in rainbow colors.
You wouldn’t think ice cream could be a line drawn in the sand, but earlier this month, a woman who identified herself as a customer called shop co- owner Deborah Backes to say her family would be taking their business elsewhere. Ice cream meant to mark Pride month was simply a bridge too far for the caller.
When someone does something like that, the only response is “Cool! More for me!” Except it’s that caller’s nastiness that makes Pride Month so important, especially for young people just beginning to embrace their orientation. The shop owners were surprised by the call, but they probably shouldn’t have been, Backes said. Gay and lesbian people can get married, have children, and move next door to you on “Sesame Street,” and you’ll still have an angry kernel of people who spread hate.
Earlier this year, the mother of a member of a local student group approached Backes and her husband, Michael Grissmer, to ask if they would create a Pride- centric ice cream, with some of the profits going to help pay for a Ridgefield Pride in the Park event this month. Two years ago ( pre- pandemic), the group had set up a table in front of the shop to raise money. The couple said “Sure.”
The ice cream needed to be rainbow- colored ( like the Pride flag), and it needed to be sweet. Skittles came to mind ( taste the rainbow) but frozen Skittles would be too tough to chew. Backes was able to find, through her distributor, gummy Skittles that worked.
The shop makes and sells seasonal ice cream all the time. Watch for their Summer Peach, which was a little delayed because the Pride ice cream took some time. Be sure to try their Summer Symphony, a mix of honey, vanilla and lavender, created to celebrate arts and music in the area.
After the phone call, Backes and Grissmer decided they’d donate all the profits from the Pride ice cream to the group, and profits have been healthy, especially after Backes wrote a Facebook post about that phone call. Since the post, Backes said they’ve been getting people coming in from all around the state asking for Pride ice cream.
That is one thing the rest of us can do. We can shout out the haters. Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib came out recently on Instagram, and within a day, Fanatics network announced that Nassib’s No. 94 was its top- selling jersey. We can replace stolen Pride flags. We can fly our own. We can go eat Pride ice cream. We can give radical support, and we can do that wherever we are.
Backes and Grissmer met as Yale Law School graduates, idealistic in that way law students can be. They were going to change the world, and then they got jobs in the city — Backes at a law firm, Grissmer at a talent agency — and found the corporate world wasn’t as conducive to world- changing as they’d hoped.
Backes, whose mother made chocolate at home, suggested opening a boutique chocolate shop in Grissmer’s hometown, Ridgefield. Her suggestion was met with skepticism, but then they visited a homemade chocolate shop in New York, and the idea stopped seeming so far- fetched. They moved to Ridgefield, and in 1998, opened a chocolate shop, where if they couldn’t change the world, they could at least make people happy.
They applied the same fervor to learning chocolate- and candymaking as they had to their law classes. They added ice cream to the menu a few years later. They got to know the town, especially the middle- schoolers who come in on Fridays after school. And they brought in Backes’ mother to help make chocolates.
People don't leave a chocolate shop unhappy. They usually get happy and stay that way once they smell the chocolate and see the candy. That’s true for just about everyone, except maybe homophobes, for whom no amount of chocolate and goofy ice cream will do.
Maureen Tyra, an East Ridge Middle School social studies teacher who is the faculty adviser for the school’s student council and their Genders and Sexualities Alliance, said that by offering Pride ice cream, Backes and Grissmer are continuing their tradition of being good neighbors. She said the shop can be counted on for donations for various school and community events, but that one customer’s reaction is what some of these LGBTQ+ students live with every day.
“The whole point is kids in this community can feel so picked on, alone, and afraid,” Tyra said. Pride in the Park lets them be themselves. “They can be joyful,” she said.
“This is about a group of kids,” Backes said. “They are trying to do something good for the community. And it’s been really nice that they can see that good voices outnumber the others.”