About Snowflake Ice Cream Shoppe

My name is Stuart Feldschuh and my wife, Carolyn, and I have owned Snowflake Ice Cream Shoppe in Riverhead since 1988. The business was launched in 1953 by Herb and Joan Kunitz and we still use the original recipe.

At the time we purchased the business, we had been working on Wall Street. It was right after the big crash of the '80s, and we had a home out here. We decided we wanted to leave New York City and Wall Street and wanted to work out here. Snowflake was the place where we used to get our ice cream; we'd stop here on our way back to the city.

Snowflake has been in Riverhead a long time and it will be here after we're gone. We're just the ones watching it for this time.

In the 1940s and '50s, there were a lot of shops that made ice cream and it was all homemade. In the 1950s, supermarkets started selling ice cream as a cost leader, and Americans got accustomed to eating crummy ice cream. Herb and Joan never changed with the times. They continued to make homemade ice cream with the best ingredients, and I'm fortunate to have been taught by Herb.

I've had a lot of different jobs in my life, but it was always a fantasy to own an ice cream shop. When I was a kid, I worked for the Good Humor man in the summer, selling Good Humor bars from a tricycle. Owning Snowflake is fulfilling that childhood dream.

This isn't really a job for us. It's fun, and the community is involved. A lot of our flavors are suggested by customers, and we always have a different flavor of the week.

We're committed to using local ingredients whenever possible. For example, during blueberry season, we use fresh blueberries from Riverhead for our toppings. We also use local peaches, strawberries, and more. The key to our success is keeping it simple and using fresh, local ingredients.

That's the secret to what we've been doing. We don't buy extracts or artificial flavors. If I can get fresh berries, I start with that.

'The Work We Do' is a News-Review multimedia project profiling workers on the North Fork. See more photos on Instagram @riverheadnewsreview. Watch the video on facebook.com/theriverheadnewsreview.