We want to thank everyone who came out to see us February 19th for opening day, the kick off of the 2011 ice cream season! It was a sunny day, but the blustery air made for a cold afternoon. The temperature stayed in the low thirties all day. Still, thousands of our loyal customers showed up to get free cones.
The Free Day tradition began in 1953, when Durbin Magic Freeze founders Jack and June Durbin, first opened for business on May 5th of that year. They decided to offer the public free cones of their new soft-serve custard so that people would taste how great their ice cream was and hopefully come back for more. It worked; immediately their little ice cream shop became a local favorite. After a couple years, Free Day became less about gaining new customers and more about celebrating the start of the ice cream season, and a special way to thank our customers.
On a typical Free Day we give away between two and three thousand ice cream cones! Our visitors range in age from little babies getting their first bite of Durbin's ice cream, to 90 year old friends who have been coming since day one! We even get several 4-legged friends whose owners get them their very own cones to enjoy! This year was no exception.
It's always great to see familiar faces and hear about our fans who have been our patrons for years. Waiting for our two o'clock opening that day were local sisters Beth and Jill who said they've been coming to Durbin's Free Day since they were young, and now they're bringing their own families. One gentleman said he used to live right across the street, and walked over all the time for ice cream. Now he lives further away but still visits as much as he can, especially for Free Day. One of our many great customers and Facebook fans, Erica, brought her daughter out for some sunshine and ice cream. They sat in the parking lot enjoying their cones, and we enjoyed seeing Erica's daughter's ice cream smile!
This year we had people from Norton, Wadsworth, Doylestown, Akron, Munroe Falls, Copley and of course, Barberton. But there are always those we meet who come from much further away. This year we found a young man from Tennessee here visiting friends and getting his first Durbin's vanilla cone. We don't know if he enjoyed the weather, but he looked like he was enjoying his cone!
In years past we've even had visitors from as far away as Florida and California. But no matter where our visitors come from, we appreciate every single one of you. And, we certainly want to thank our hometown fans from Barberton for always supporting us. In spite of a long, cold winter, we are really excited for this season. We've already seen a lot our old friends returning for ice cream, plus a lot of new faces, and that's wonderful!
Free Day is a really fun tradition for us. It builds great memories for us and hopefully for our customers. So thank you again for coming out, and we hope you'll be back to see us soon!
~ Durbin Magic Freeze
