'New Mandates' Prompt Beloved Ice Cream Shop To Nix Indoor Dining

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Eddie's Sweet Shop has been serving homemade ice cream to customers at the same wooden booths since the 1960s. That tradition changed indefinitely this week.

The iconic parlor, located on Metropolitan Avenue in Forest Hills, announced on Wednesday that it is only offering take out service “until further notice” — a decision that the ice cream shop said is “due to new mandates,” likely alluding to the indoor vaccine mandate, which, as of Sept. 13, requires businesses to check customers’ proof of vaccination against COVID-19 before letting them indoors, or risk fines.

Short of alluding to new mandates, and saying that everyone is otherwise “doing well,” Eddie’s declined to comment when Patch about its decision to only offer take out service.

After Eddie’s posted news of its service change on Facebook and Instagram, the shop’s dedicated customer base responded on social media in hundreds-of-comments-long threads, which quickly devolved into debates about the coronavirus vaccine and the city’s vaccination mandates.

Some argued that Eddie’s was robbing vaccinated customers of the chance to eat indoors and questioned why the parlor didn’t set up outdoor dining.

One called the closure, “the reality of what happens when not enough folks get vaccinated.”

Others, by contrast, praised the ice cream shop for its so-called “protest closure” amid vaccine mandates and chastised the city for harming small businesses.

One person even called out Mayor Bill de Blasio's attendance at the Met Gala, saying that instead of helping small businesses he attended an expensive, crowded event. (The Met Gala required proof of vaccination, and masks indoors.)

Another compared the city’s vaccine mandate to the racist, systemic separation of businesses on the basis of racial lines, writing “thank you for not supporting segregation.”

Although almost 70 percent of Forest Hills residents have had at least one shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, putting the neighborhood on par with the citywide rate of vaccination, this isn’t the first time that people in the neighborhood expressed vaccine skepticism — especially online.

One neighborhood Facebook group, for instance, sees nearly 20 posts a day, many of which are dedicated to far-right media sources and memes mocking vaccination.

Many customers, however, were more concerned with the reason for Eddie’s closure than debates about the ongoing pandemic.

Some speculated that Eddie’s didn’t want to enforce the mandate, or was worried about putting their younger workers in the position of doing so, whereas others said that the shop might be trying to accommodate its large customer base of families with young, unvaccinated children. (The city’s indoor vaccine mandate doesn’t apply to children under 12, who are currently ineligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.)

Others, still, just wished that Eddie’s was more transparent about why they made the take out only decision.

“They should announce the exact reasoning behind their current decision and what has to change in the future for their establishment to admit customers inside again,” wrote one, who thinks that “half the appeal” of Eddie’s is the interior atmosphere.

Another self-described frequent customer, who “genuinely wants to know” the shop’s reason for the change, pointed out, however, that Eddie’s offered take out only for most of the pandemic — from June of last year through February — and everyone “survived.”

While most customers appear saddened and confused by the new requirements, many are still undeterred in their quests for hot fudge sundaes and ice cream.

When I called the shop less than an hour after it opened on Wednesday afternoon, shortly after the no-seating rule went into effect, the employee who answered my call immediately put me on hold to attend to a growing line of customers' orders.