We All Scream for Ice Cream - Grab a Snack at the Creamery!

by Ashley Dronenburg | photos by Lesley Onstott

Wooden shelves with collectible plates, an old Coca-Cola wall clock and a figurine of an ice cream man in his apron, peddling his cart of frozen treats on his bicycle are charming decorations that dot the Creamery.

Since being acquired by the Food Service Department in 1991, the Creamery has gone through some radical changes, but the cozy atmosphere stays the same.

"We wanted to make the Creamery a gathering place, a destination where people would want to meet their friends and just eat and talk," says J. Michael Floyd, Director of Campus Food Services. "We remodeled the entire store."

Don't let the name fool you - the Creamery is more of an all-purpose eatery. Located at the corner of the Environmental Health Science building, behind Snelling and across from Pharmacy, the Creamery now has an outdoor plaza that includes tables with umbrellas, benches and lush landscaping.

Offering a mix of sandwiches, teas, muffins and numerous ice cream flavors amidst an array of dozens of bottled beverages and candies, the Creamery continually serves affordable options. The selection contributes to the three different rushes that employees Kenza Lewis, her twin sister Kenya Hardy and Regina Howard encounter daily.

"At about 10 o'clock we get a run on bagels and coffee, and around noon we get the lunch crowd and sell a lot of soups, sandwiches and chips," Howard says. "We don't get the ice cream rush until the late afternoon."

Lewis, Hardy and Howard say they get a good mix of students, professors, employees and Athens residents.

The Creamery's location has an appeal all its own. The recent addition of green space to the strip between the Pharmacy and Forestry buildings, once lined only with asphalt, provides a prime snacking area.

Customers have two varieties of ice cream to choose from: Mayfield hand-dipped or Edy's Grand Soft soft-serve. The flavor options offer impressive diversity, with everything from classics like butter pecan, chocolate, and strawberry to innovations like peach yogurt, blackberry cobbler and lemon bar. The soft-serve flavors rotate based on availability, but the Mayfield flavors are consistent.

There's more to the Creamery than just great ice cream, though.

The Creamery's part in UGA's history is well-established. In 1908 the opening of the new agricultural building of Connor Hall brought in Holstein cows, according to Dr. Lane O. Ely, a professor in UGA's Animal and Dairy Science Department. The Creamery moved to the basement of Connor Hall (and to the Dairy Sciences building in 1941) to process milk from the UGA dairy and became the main provider of dairy products for the entire Athens area.

In the '60s, the Creamery stopped delivering to Athens homes, but the public still came to the sales room in the Dairy Sciences building (and later moved to its current location) to purchase milk, ice cream and cheeses.

So when and why did the Creamery stop manufacturing its own dairy products?

"The Creamery was initially put in place to help with teaching dairy science, but by the late 1990s, the equipment was so antique that the teaching technique was compromised," Floyd says. "The necessary replacement parts were impossible to find or manufacture, and with budget cuts, the Creamery was slated to close."

Instead, Food Services took over, bringing in the variety of products available today.

Yet Floyd feels the Creamery's "demise" had more to do with changes in the state's economy and the demand for dairy science majors than budget cuts and old machines.

"In the 1930s and 1940s, Georgia was a big dairy state, but it really isn't anymore," Floyd says. "What happened with the Creamery is a direct reflection of the change in academic studies and the popularity of the dairy science major."

Though the Creamery has been successfully reinvented and rescued from total abandonment, its discontinued services have indeed left a void. The Creamery's transitions have altered older traditions, but new ones are being forged daily. And though it has changed, the Creamery still has its place in campus culture.

Today the Creamery bustles with business, from thin but steady streams of customers to the familiar swells of mealtime crowds. But years of experience and routine can't prepare the Creamery's staff for the occasional "ambush" of an onslaught of patrons.

"There was one time where a day care center brought in all their little kids, screaming what flavors they wanted at the top of their lungs," Howard says. "When they left there were sticky handprints all over the glass on the doors."

And if history serves as any indicator, those doors will remain permanently open for business.

UGA CREAMERY HOURS:
Monday-Friday: 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: CLOSED
Milkshakes: $3.60
Ice Cream Cones:
Mayfield - $1.39 single, $2.69 double
Edy's - $1.49 single, ? double
Cup of Edy's - $2.25