No Ice Cream In Sight For Taylor's In Chester

Gutted.

That's the scene inside Taylor's Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street in Chester, nearly six months after a fire ripped through the building that holds the iconic dessert shop.

Reconstruction is a slow-go, but it's more on the shoulders of the insurance company, store owner Ron Klein said while surveying the shop on Thursday.

"We lost about 80-percent of our business this year," Klein said, as no ice cream could be served this summer. "And we're only getting about 25-percent of that back in our business lost insurance."

Electricians have been rewiring the store this week and the interior structural work is nearly complete. But each time Klein asks someone for a timetable, the answer seems to change.

"At the beginning of the summer (construction workers) said it would be two weeks," Klein said. "Then it was six weeks, and now they're telling me they don't know at all."

With the 40th annual Fall Craft Show in Chester set to take place this weekend, Klein said the most lucrative two days of the year for the shop will be gone.

The fire also damaged the buildings apartments on the second level. Authorities said in March the blaze was a result of a candle that ignited a set of curtains.

This post was created using Patch's mobile app.