Beloved shaved-ice treat is back in area
Honey’s Sno-Balls is back.
The bright yellow food truck that dispenses about 70 flavors of shaved-ice “snow balls” topped with syrup, and sometimes cream, is a fixture at Westbury Square in the 5500 block of West Belfort from spring until late fall.
Whether to open again this year was a big question for owner Sudie Stennis after the unexpected November death from illness of her partner, Martha Richie. The couple had started the mobile business in 2001.
“I thought about selling the snowball stand, but the closer it got to spring, the more I thought, ‘I’ll miss it. I love doing the snowballs,’ ” Stennis said.
She decided to go ahead with the business as long as she could find helpers, which so far hasn’t been an issue. Typically open from about 3-7 p.m., weather permitting, the truck also travels occasionally to private birthday parties or community events.
For a number of years, Honey’s Sno-Balls has kept customers happy at Willow Waterhole activities, said Howard Sacks, past president of the Willow Waterhole Green Space Conservancy.
The waterhole park near Westbury High School contains a huge detention pond created to help prevent flooding. It’s proven to be a popular site for birdwatching and other nature outings as well as public gatherings such as movie nights and music festivals.
On Sunday, April 24, Stennis and her yellow truck spent the day at Willow Waterhole’s annual music festival until the event was rained out in mid-afternoon.
Sacks met Stennis and Richie in 2007, when Willow Waterhole community events began. At the time, Honey’s Sno-Balls offered about 100 flavors of snowballs as well as hot dogs, tamales and nachos.
“In the beginning, when crowds were small, they were the perfect food truck because they offered a pretty wide menu for not being a big truck,” Sacks said.
In those days, the food truck was a trailer pulled by a pickup.
The co-owners used it from 2001 to 2010, when circumstances led them to take a break for three years. Often, they would encounter former customers all over southwest Houston, said Kelley Smith, a friend and patron since the stand’s inception.
Children would be especially delighted to see them.
“Kids would say, ‘Oh, there’s the snowball ladies — they’re famous!” said Smith, an orthopedic technician who fits children for casts and braces.
“They have some loyal customers who never forgot them.”
When Stennis and Richie got an opportunity to buy the van in 2013, they were back in business.
One customer who first visited the stand as a teenager in Meyerland, Sean McCauley, is back as an adult and still partial to watermelon snowballs. He said he appreciates the warm reception he’s always gotten from the snowball ladies.
“They’re always so friendly and nice,” said McCauley, who works in property management.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, Suzanne ShawGuttman was at Honey’s Sno-Balls with her 7-yearold son. She said the stand had gained a following among members of an area mothers’ group after the Memorial Day 2015 flood.
“A lot of us are Westbury Square lovers and like to support a local business that’s reasonably priced and convenient,” said Shaw Guttman, who grew up in Westbury and lives in Bellaire.
From its start 15 years ago, Honey’s Sno-Balls is one of the oldest food trucks in southwest Houston, according to Sacks.
And it helped pave the way for another truck at Westbury Square — PopUp Coffee Stop, co-owned by Leslee and James Cross.
The year-old business is open from 7:30-11:30 a.m., selling coffee and assorted breakfast items.
The Crosses are using an electrical power pole that Stennis and Richie initially arranged to have installed.
“It was in their name and they allowed us to get the power turned back on,” Leslee Cross said of the snowball team. Whether the presence of two food trucks will draw others to Westbury Square remains to be seen.
Stennis said she’s pleased with her decision to keep the stand open.