An icon of Utah’s sugar love is returning to the Wasatch Front this week, with the opening of the area’s first Snelgrove ice cream shop in more than a decade.
The new shop, at 330 W. Parrish Lane in Centerville, will have its grand opening Friday and Saturday, the company announced in a news release. The shop will be open from 11 a.m. to midnight both days.
It is the first of four Snelgrove shops the company plans to open in the next few months. The company says it will open an outlet in Lehi on March 14, in Sandy on March 28, and in South Jordan sometime this summer.
The company was founded in 1929 in Salt Lake City by Charles R. Snelgrove. Its current CEO, Lyndsay Snelgrove — Charles’ great-granddaughter — told The Salt Lake Tribune in December that cones at Charles’ shop initially cost a nickel.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Old Snelgroves property on 2100 South in Sugar House, on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022.
Charles Snelgrove’s thought, Lyndsay said, was that during the Great Depression, “you can’t go on vacation necessarily anymore, but you can always go get an ice cream cone. You can always take your family. That’s a little break you can get.”
The first of Snelgrove’s iconic double-cone signs was erected in 1962, outside the company’s plant on 2100 South in Salt Lake City’s Sugar House neighborhood. It was the first 3D sign made by the Salt Lake City-based YESCO sign company. The plant is gone, but the landmark sign still stands; the block is being developed into condominiums.
Another double-cone sign remains at 400 South and 600 East in Salt Lake City. It was painted black when the shop was converted into a Jimmy John’s sandwich place.
The double-scoop cone was cemented as a Utah icon ahead of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, when it was immortalized on a trading pin.
(Sean P. Means | The Salt Lake Tribune) The iconic Snelgrove double-scoop ice cream cone was immortalized with a trading pin for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
A national ice cream maker bought the Snelgrove name in 1990 and discontinued the brand in 2008. Lyndsay Snelgrove has been leading her family’s company through a comeback and opened the first new Snelgrove shop in St. George in 2021.
Lyndsay Snelgrove told The Tribune that when she has scooped ice cream at the St. George store, customers often shared their memories of the brand.
“I’ve had people come in, just in tears, because their mom passed away, and she used to bring them to Snelgrove,” she said. “Or a ton of first dates. They’re married now, but it was their first date. Just all sorts of stuff like that.”
— Tribune food writer Kolbie Peterson contributed to this article.
