Granite Quarry town officials and firefighters order ice cream after the grand opening of Heavenly Scoop Creamery on Wednesday.

GRANITE QUARRY — When Brian and Emilie Scharf’s daughter Kyra was pregnant, one of the family’s favorite places to go together was the Landis Creamery. When the family moved to Granite Quarry and built the building at 322 S. Salisbury Ave., they decided to bring an ice cream-centered community space with them.

“We lived in China Grove for a year and a half, and we were close to an ice cream shop down there, and that was one of our things that we would go to with our daughter who was pregnant at the time. That was kind of our little, two or three times a week go to the ice cream shop in Landis. So, when we moved up here, we were kind of sad that we were going to be away from our ice cream,” said Emilee.

The Scharfs bought the Granite Quarry property in 2022 and began constructing the commercial building with plans to move into their own home behind the building. Since then, GQ Discount Tobacco & Vape and French Express Coffee House have opened up in three of the four units in the building.

For a while, those two were neighbored by an office for the family’s heating, air and appliance repair company, A2Z Appliance and Home Services, but the Scharfs were exploring other opportunities to utilize the space, eventually landing on the ice cream store.

“My daughter, she had already had the baby since we moved back up here last July. She had already had the baby, but was finding it difficult to find work to do and be able to take care of the baby at the same time. So we said, what if we start an ice cream shop and let it be her business?” said Emilie.

Kyra gathered all of the information on setting up the store and acquiring supply from Hershey’s, said Emilie and brought that back. Then, Brian got to work setting up a store inspired by other ice cream stores they had frequented and adding their own touch.

“We wanted what everybody’s kind of used to, it’s old fashioned,” said Brian.

“You just can’t beat sitting down with a scoop of good ice cream, actually I don’t think anyone should just have one scoop, you got to have scoops,” added Emilie. “One of the things that we did was we kind of took our favorites, we have 36 flavors. We started with the (12) we liked and then as we ran out of those we were like ‘oh, we definitely have to have this one or that one.”

The shop had its soft launch on April 25, and Emilie and Brian said they have been happy with the way the community has responded to the new space. They also said they have been taking customer input on ordering new flavors as they run out of previous stock.

“We’ve just started asking people that we knew, our friends, and we’re like ‘OK, what kind of ice creams do you think we should get?’ That’s how we’ve got our 36 flavors, and then as people have come in, when one flavor runs out and we’ve traded it for a new flavor, they’re like ‘Oh, do you have this one?’ No, but we’ll get it next time we order,” said Emilie.

The store hosted its grand opening on Wednesday with town officials and firefighters, and is now fully open for business for people who want to beat the heat. Heavenly Scoop is open from 3 to 8 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and from 1 to 8 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Granite Quarry Town Manager Jason Hord said that he and other town officials were “very excited” for the store. He also noted that the ice cream shop stood at the edge of what he considers downtown Granite Quarry, and the community-oriented local shop represented exactly what the town targets for that area.

“It’s very important, even something that seems small like an ice cream shop draws people in. Coffee shops are the same way, every community has a coffee shop now and its become the new-age hangout. I think that’s your morning stop and your afternoon stop can be the ice cream shop or Snow-Biz, you can pick your fancy there, do you want shaved ice or do you want ice cream? We’re super excited about these places, even though small in size are still a destination for you to come to Granite Quarry,” said Hord.