Friday night delights

They deal in a commodity customers line up for, seeking a scoop of sweetness on summer nights.

The crew provides the goods in small dollops of succulence that contain a few minutes of delight.

Their product: Ice cream.

They’re the Friday night crew at Ted and Wally’s, the little white shop at the corner of 12th and Jackson Streets.

“If the line could move that way, please?” Hannah Perdue half-asked, half-ordered after folks briefly ceased to advance. Perdue, 19, bounced cheerfully as she made this demand and waved her arms toward the spot where customers claim their ice cream and pay up.

Five young workers stood behind the counter this Friday from 5:30 p.m. to closing time at midnight, plus a 30-minute cleanup session. Although they sold an item associated with joy and even ecstasy, make no mistake about their work. It’s a grind to manage the line, stay on task and scoop ice cream for more than six hours.

People came in waves. Sometimes the line was only a dozen people long, and sometimes it went out the door, 35 strong queuing for ice cream, sundaes, shakes and splits. Rarely do they buy coffee, but it’s on the menu, which is taped to the glass cover in front of the counter.

The crew was young — 19 to 23 years of age, two women and three men. Four wore some kind of hat. The three young men put on white aprons and had beards in varying stages. The young women went without aprons. An Vu wore shorts and high-top basketball shoes. Perdue wore trendy torn jeans and displayed two tattoos on an upper arm, each depicting a mushroom.

While its business is all about taste, Ted and Wally’s overloaded another sense as well: Sound. Noise bounced off the brick-colored tile floor and brick walls painted white. Children squawked and laughed, adults chattered, and the result was a surprisingly loud, constant din.

Three gaudy pieces of art hung from the walls. So did old-fashioned neons of ice cream cones or simply “Sodas” and “Malts.”

The staff listed the evening’s 13 flavors on a chalkboard behind the counter. Some of them would be replaced as flavors sold out. The flavors included rice krispy treat, cake mix, cinnamon grapenuts and gingerbread cookie. In all, Ted and Wally’s claims a recipe collection of more than 400 flavors, including mincemeat pie, avocado, caramel pretzel, rum raisin, astronaut orange and peanut butter ‘n’ jelly. Sometimes special orders come in for parties or events. Recently they received an order for a small batch of turkey bacon ice cream. In the past, they’ve made pizza, Pabst Blue Ribbon and sweet corn ice creams.

The shop belongs to the brother-sister duo of Joe Pittack, 33, and Jeanne Ohira, 36. They bought it nine years ago when it was on Howard Street. Ohira had worked there for four years and Pittack had worked there some, too. They moved it down the block and around the corner, leasing what had been an outdoor decoration and plant shop, and, before that, a gas station.

They declined to talk about profits or revenues. Business is good enough to employ 16 part-time workers and buy new freezer and air-conditioning units this summer.

A Maggie Moo’s ice cream store moved in across the street six years ago, and for a time, that shop’s former owner sent an employee in a cow costume around the Old Market and onto the Ted and Wally’s parking lot. This created a certain amount of chaos and hard feelings, Pittack said, but the new owner there doesn’t do that and the two shops get along fine.

“Maggie Moo’s is all right with us,” Pittack said.

By 9:45 p.m., the line stretched about 35 people long, including nine waiting outside the door. Perdue made a sign earlier in the night and taped it to that door: “Please, Mister Door wants to be CLOSED!! He would tell you ‘thank you’ if he could.”

Signs and notes hang throughout the store, many of them behind the counter. “Please make sure to return recipe cards to box. Thanks!” read one. “Yo Ted & Wally Nerds! Joe only wants one sorbet out at a time so please try to keep any others in the deep freeze. Thanks. — El Raton,” read another. Another note said a neighbor’s cat was missing and suggested it “might be in our kitchen ceiling (again).”

The hazelnut crunch ice cream sold out. Pralines and cream replaced it. Cake mix ice cream also was gone, with coffee ice cream in its place.

Indie-rock music from employee Tim Brown’s iPod played on the store’s speaker system, but you could barely hear it. An Vu jabbed her foot into the back of the knees of all four of her co-workers, hoping to cause them to lurch forward. Perdue tended to whistle as she worked. Bobby Barajas’ girlfriend showed up, and he took a break to talk to her, give her a kiss and take the chicken wings and french fries she brought.

Night manager Matt Carroll was the most serious. Carroll, 23, has worked at the store 2½ years. It’s his job to tell employees not to wear flip-flops or to remind them that scoops don’t have to be huge. This night, he didn’t have to tell anyone anything. About 10:45 p.m., he pulled out the can of turkey bacon ice cream, and he, Brown and Barajas tried a dab.

“Put some pancakes in there, you’ve got a full breakfast,” Barajas said.

Barajas took a break to eat his wings in the kitchen. Vu, the clown of the five, went back there and performed some dance moves.

Only two blatant gaffes occurred this night. As Carroll handed a bespectacled man his rice krispy shake, he brushed the spoon in the shake against something and it sloshed shake onto the customer. Shortly, that same man brought his half-eaten shake back to the counter, indicating something foreign was in it. Four employees gathered around the cup and looked in. The shake contained a fiber or thread or — they hated to use the word — hair. Carroll apologized to the man and made him another shake.

It was about 11:30 p.m., and the night began to wind down. The line had dwindled. Perdue washed off some tables. Vu and Brown high-fived and Barajas took out the trash. They had gone through 12 cans of ice cream, which meant they sold about 40 gallons. They had served several hundred customers.

At 12:02 a.m., Perdue locked the door and put up a sign. “We CLOSED AT 12! Sorry Folks!” it read. “See ya tomorrow?”

Contact the writer:

444-1123, rick.ruggles@owh.com

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