Coonie’s Cones & Cookin’

Rumor has it the local Dairy Bar is now in the hands of my parents (Matt + Connie), which stands to be true!! Tom’s Dairy Bar will now be Coonie’s Cones & Cookin’. This has definitely been one hard secret to keep within our family & I’ll take a moment to pat myself on the back since I was the ONLY one in my family to not inform anyone of this news within the state of Ohio until a few weeks ago. Obviously it was not an official deal until the recent month(s), but the conversations were beginning back in November or so? My brother, who resides in Texas, apparently informed a handful of people while he was home for Christmas break. Mom kept having random people asking her questions months ago & they would say, “John told so and so when he was home!” haha! We had to ask, ‘so who all did you inform of this John-boy?’ We would just laugh when we heard the next random person ask questions & collect our ‘rumor has it’ stories.

On behalf of my parents, they are SUPER EXCITED to serve our small-town community. Growing up, we use to live right across from this dairy bar & walked over there to get our favorite Vanilla Pepsi. My mom grew up on those & introduced VPs to us young. (I know everyone who is reading this & knows me well is in shock I drank these since I will not drink pop, but if I am going to have one, this is the top choice.) We use to order them before they were popular & before you could even buy them in a can. Sometimes we would order them & get the response, “We do not have those.” We would always say, “Do you have Pepsi?” YES! “Good, do you have vanilla syrup?” YES! “Perfect, just give me a little bit of that syrup in that pepsi, please. Bam, you have a VP.” Needless to say, we have you VP fans covered. Back when we lived across the street from the dairy bar, the owners had concrete poured only to find the next day someone’s foot/hand prints. Guess who got blamed? We did, but I promise you, it was not us. Although, if somehow I knew it would end up in our ownership one day, we may have considered it. (jk).

So, many of you may think I have spelled my mom’s name wrong in the business name, but I didn’t. It is Coonie’s & NOT Connie’s. Are you wondering where Coonie came from? Well, for 15 years we have traveled to PA for vacation and have vacationed with the same families for all these years. One of our good friends, Sam Hart, started calling my brother John, Juhnie. He started changing the ‘o’ in the name to an ‘ew’ sound. Juhnie caught on quick & everyone called him that. Eventually, Sam thought, why not try Coonie for Connie? Well, that has definitely stuck. To be honest, we even call my mom that half the time & before some people get on the ‘disrespectful’ rant, just rest assured she likes it. If you do not know my mom, she is not the formal type when it comes to names at all. She would always ask me to inform my friends to STOP calling her ma’am and Mrs. Haller. She actually hated it. She is totally that “small-town, everybody knows everybody, you don’t need an invitation” kind of personality. That’s where Coonie comes from, a place where we have treasured memories with treasured friends who just happened to call her Coonie one time and we have never looked back. If you listen closely, you may be amazed at how many people actually call her this. When mom talked to us about her & dad potentially investing in the Dairy Bar, we all responded, “You will name it Coonie’s, right?” Of course, she would always respond! SOO Shout out to SAM HART from PA for the name.

As mentioned, we purchased the dairy bar from Tom & Annette Chapman and it could not have come from better hands. Over the past few years they have invested in this business through their time, energy, the latest equipment, and a very well-kept building/property. We are so very thankful for their hard work and dedication to keeping this place in tip-top shape. I could literally eat on the floor of that place, it’s that clean.

With all this being said, we open THIS Friday March 27th & yours truly will be helping out on opening day (help us all ). I ask for everyone to put their patient pants on for the first week or two. As with any business opening with new people, there is a lot to be learned. We can only practice so much without real orders happening so please please be kind to us as we train new employees and get the hang of this new routine ourselves. Come visit us in good ol’ Richwood (but not all at once, please)

PINIMAGE