Ice Cream on the Beach: An Indian Neck Tradition

Our detour last week ended up being very helpful for the research on the Limewood Beach in Indian Neck, because responses from readers came out of the woodwork as they guessed (or confirmed) (which we'll officially reveal next week, though many Branford residents clearly know the answer!). Many readers also weighed in with their ideas about the , which more than likely belonged to an ice cream shop known as the Dairy Joy, or the Dairy J.

From 1962 to 1978, this small shop stood at 95 Limewood Ave. (In 1977, it was called Lorie's Dairy.) "Redleader," or Kevin Hanahan as he's better known (a '78 BHS graduate), gave us the first information about the shop, writing: 

My memory was that it was a white building with two walk up windows.  I would say 3 cars could park on either side of the building.  The parking lot was always covered in sand.   Sometimes people would have fires on the beach in that area.  Then others would use the burned charcoal from those fires to write messages on the back side (ocean side) of Dairy Joy.  A peace sign was quite common when I was little in the 60s.   For sure they served all sorts of ice cream.

Kevin, like a few other readers, mentioned that the Surfside Restaurant used to be on the other end of the beach, but was on wooden pilings rather than on a concrete foundation.

Branford Patch user got us in touch with Jan Newton, whose parents used to run Dairy Joy. She wrote, 

I remember hanging out at the Dairy Joy after when I was 16 to 18 in High School.  Those were fun days but my parents got rid of it ... in the 60s cause they bought 3 Mr Softee trucks.

But could the foundations be much older? Branford Patch reader Joanne Gray made an alternate suggestion – one came across in my research, helped by Librarian Deb Trofatter at the , as a possibility: the Pioneer Store. Joanne wrote of the picture we posted,

It looks to me very much like the location of the old Pioneer Store. During the early 40s my father and mother, Ray and Esther Holsenbeck ran the store each summer, Memorial Day (or, back then it was referred to as Decoration Day) to Labor Day.  The Pioneer Store was a hot dog-, hamburger-, candy-, ice cream- and soda-joint, with a juke box that cost a nickel a song and had all the big band tunes and big name vocalists of the day.  The juke box was connected to a loud speaker that was placed on the roof of the building and could be heard over the entire beach, from Sound View beach to Haycock Point.  Even today, 70 years or so later when I hear one of the big band tunes I am transported back to Scum Beach and my youth.

As it turns out, Limewood Beach has a long history of ice cream stores. Jane Bouley of the Branford Historical Society said that in the early 1900s, there was a store on the beach right up close to the road and the trolley tracks. It was originally called Buckingham Station, but was later named – you guessed it – the Pioneer Store. But Jane wrote that this original building is the same location that became the Surfside Restaurant, which was opened by Sam DiPersio in 1946. 

My conclusion? Dairy Joy is the most likely candidate. But whichever shop once stood at that location, it's fun to imagine those little restaurants on the beach, selling ice cream and grinders and beach supplies!

While I was doing my research, I went down to the Blackstone and spent some time with Deb and Librarian looking at the photos owned by the Branford Historical Society. If you're interested in seeing more old time photos like the ones above, ask at the reference desk and tell them Alana sent you.