Ice cream shop opens near downtown Clinton: Burr-Ville Sweet Treats
Burr-Ville Sweet Treats has opened at 197 Edgewood Ave. in Clinton. Here on opening day are (from left behind counter) Cadence Crowley, Bailey Burroughs, Camryn Burrows, Stacey Walker and owner Carla Burroughs, serving customers Ryleigh Hicks, left, and Macie Richardson. (photo:G Chambers Williams III )
A team of five employees was waiting and ready behind the counter when the door to the shop was opened at 1 p.m. Thursday, June 29, and the shop did a brisk business most of the rest of the day until it closed at 9 p.m.
“We’re just happy to finally get the shop open,” said owner Carla Long-Burroughs, who also runs Genesis Real Estate Title Co. next door in the same building.
With a long freezer display case full of tubs of Blue Bell ice cream, the shop offers scoops and cones of ice cream, sundaes, banana splits, and hand-dipped milkshakes. There also are specialty shakes that include extras such as cheesecake.
Ice cream comes in a variety of flavors, including some seasonal specialties offered by Blue Bell, the popular premium ice cream maker based in Brenham, Texas.
Long-Burroughs said she bought the building about two years ago, but uses only one side of it for the title company.
“I didn’t want to be a landlord, so I decided to start another business in the other side,” she said, adding that she wanted to open the shop to “give the community a place to hang out and eat ice cream,” especially young people.
“I feel we were led to open the ice cream shop,” she said. “We won’t have any inside seating, but we have a big yard, and we have a custom pergola with porch swings and picnic tables in the yard.
“My heart is drawn to the next generation,” she said. “I hope to fill that yard with our teenagers. My vision is to have a summer sermon series, pulling in different youth pastors to come and give messages on Thursday nights.
Long-Burroughs and her husband, Jason, have four children, including 3-year-old twin sons Jase and Jake, and two daughters, Camryn, who is a fourth-grade teacher at Clinton Elementary School, and Bailey, who will be a junior this fall at Clinton High School.
Starting out, Burr-Ville will be open from 1 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, she said. How long its season will be remains to be decided, but the hours most likely will be trimmed back when school starts again in August, she said.