The coronavirus pandemic has taken out another Minnesota business, this time the famous Izzy’s Ice Cream in St. Paul.
The company announced Tuesday that it is permanently closing its original St. Paul shop, but will reopen its Minneapolis location with delivery-only service on May 4.
“It is with great sadness that we are closing our St. Paul location. We want to thank you so much for supporting us over the last 20 years. We have so many memories of happiness, good times, and people coming together in serving the community. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for buying our ice cream, supporting and being ambassadors for our business, waiting in all those long lines for ice cream, and for allowing us the honor to hire your sons and daughters to scoop ice cream over the years,” the owners, Lara and Jeff Sommers, said in a statement.
The two of them opened their St. Paul location in July 2000 and launched a second store 13 years later in Minneapolis. Both locations have been closed since March 17 under the governor’s stay-at-home order.
“You are the best customers we could ever wish for! Nothing will ever take away the fact that Izzy’s comes from St. Paul. And although we will be operating solely in Minneapolis now, we still consider ourselves a St. Paul company,” the statement continued.
Jeff Sommers told The Star Tribune that Izzy’s Ice Cream is “down to 10 percent of revenue right now.”
“The lease was coming up, and we just made the decision that this was a time where we needed to pull ourselves together into a tighter operation and see if we can get through this and come out on the other side a better company,” he added.
Several other Twin Cities restaurants have announced permanent closures in recent weeks, including the Egg and I, Sleepy V’s doughnut shop, El Burrito Mercado’s Minneapolis location, NE Arcade, and Anelace Coffee.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun and The Ohio Star. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Izzy’s Ice Cream” by Izzy’s Ice Cream.
