The next time you are craving ice cream....

My first job was at a Dolly Madison ice cream factory in Denver. We also made ice cream for Meadow Gold, Safeway, the Spaghetti Factory, Drumstick, Heath, and many others (it was all the same ice cream just different boxes and prices that consumers would end up paying). One of my many disgusting duties at that job was to take a pool net every morning and scoop out the giant vats of ice cream mix before we started production. I would routinely scoop out dead rats, cockroaches, etc. We also had an old fashioned "ice cream parlor" in the front of the factory that was open to the public. We rotated who had to make the deli sandwiches that they served. It was my day to make them when the health inspector was there. He was sitting at a table in the room while I was trying to make the sandwiches talking to the son in law of the owner about war stories. The factory was so infested with cockroaches that they were running all over the table that I was making the sandwiches on. I was desperately trying to keep the cockroaches out of the sandwiches as I was trying to wrap them and the inspector never said a word. This was in 1992.

Denver's landmark Dolly Madison stores close.
Publication: Ice Cream Reporter Date: Tuesday, March 20 2001
Ice cream lovers in the Denver area are mourning the closing of six of the eight remaining Dolly Madison ice cream stores. The Denver Post reported on February 24 that the 60-year-old chain at one point had 19 stores, but that competition from grocers and chain ice cream shops squeezed the company financially, forcing the closings. The Post notes that the stores, decorated with wood paneling, were "a throwback to a time when soda fountains were community gathering places and a cone cost a nickel."
The decision to close the stores came after the brands patriarch, Ed Tepper, died last week at age 89. The store in the East 48th Avenue Dolly Madison plant in Denver will remain open. So, too, will one other store, on West 38th Avenue, at least temporarily. Fans of the stores, old and young alike, have been flocking in to say good-bye to the stores, as well as to take advantage of their going-out-of-business 2-for-the-price-of-one sales.
The stores, renowned for their featured ice cream flavors like butter brickle, rum raisin, and tin roof sundae, still were selling milk and eggs along with the ice cream, just as they had since the 1930s. Ken Simon, one of the store owners, told The Post, "You look at this store and it's still 1950. It's a fun business. I'm just sorry to see it go."