Local, seasonal ice cream shops opening heralds start of summer, memory-making season
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Cathy Menosky serves up a raspberry cone on opening day at Iceburg’s in Canonsburg. Menosky and her husband Tony learned the ice cream shop ropes through their daughters, Alex and Alyssa, who both worked their way through high school at Dari Delite before bringing their skills to their hometown.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Ralph and Wendie Liberatore frequented Casciola’s diner before purchasing the business 24 years ago. The couple added ice cream to the menu more than two decades ago, and now the seasonal shop is a staple for community members with a hankering for something cold and sweet.
Courtesy of Jennifer Sirakos
Jennifer Sirakos stands outside Lovie’s Frosty Twist, which she and her husband Scott opened in Houston in 2013. The couple’s children, Stephen and Sarah, have worked alongside their parents serving up frosty treats and smiles.
Courtesy of Jennifer Sirakos
Season after season, it’s the vanilla and chocolate ice cream flavors, usually a twist, that sell best at Lovie’s Frosty Twist in Houston.
Courtesy of Jennifer Sirakos
Frances “Fran” Sirakos, affectionately known to Stephen and Sarah Sirakos as Grandma Lovie, is pictured here with her dog Casper. Grandma Lovie is the namesake of Jennifer and Scott Sirakos’s Houston, Pa., ice cream shop, Lovie’s Frosty Twist.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Turtles decorate the perimeter of Turtle Twist, the seasonal ice cream shop that’s served the community for 19 years and counting.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Colleen Tatano, who co-owns the Turtle Twist with her husband Jim, stands, ice cream sandwich in hand, outside the seasonal shop ahead of opening day 2023.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Ireland Patrick and Ella Neiderer, right, enjoy their first Iceburg’s ice cream break of the season inside the old-fashioned parlor. Both young ladies have worked at the seasonal ice cream shop in downtown Canonsburg for at least two seasons.
Observer-Reporter file photo
Pictured in this this Observer-Reporter file photo from 2005 are Jim and Colleen Tatano, owners of the Turtle Twist on Route 980 in Cecil Township. They found the unusual building for their business online. It was dismantled and shipped from Lakewood, N.Y., and reassembled here.
Sunshine, warm breeze, the first ice cream cone of the season, at once a memory and memory in the making.
Along with franchised ice cream shops like Rita’s and Dairy Queen, the Canonsburg area is home to four locally-owned, seasonal sweet-eries serving specialty frozen treats with a big side of smiles from early April through the end of fall. A trip to the local ice cream shop, where you order at the window, pay with cash and enjoy your tasty treat on a patio, sidewalk or truck bed, is more than transactional for the owners of Casciola’s Twin Twist and Diner, Iceburg’s in Canonsburg, Lovie’s in Houston and Turtle Twist.
For them, ice cream is an experience, the shop itself a community space that facilitates camaraderie and memory-making.
Plan your visit to one or spend a particularly hot day ice cream hopping to all four – the choice is yours and bound to end in happiness.
Casciola’s
While attending a fundraiser 24 years ago, Wendie and Ralph Liberatore learned that Casciola’s, a popular Cecil Township diner, was up for sale.
“We had eaten there frequently. I wasn’t looking for a business. I called the owner, and two months later, we were signing our life away on the dotted line,” laughed Wendie. “(It’s) not something we were looking for. It just sounded like something fun. Twenty-four years later, it’s served us well.”
The ice cream shop has served the community well, too.
Casciola’s has been part of the greater Cecil and Canonsburg areas for 58 years, and it’s been under the Liberatores’ ownership for nearly half that time. The weathered building is a local fixture where generations of kids have celebrated sporting event victories, solidified their favorite ice cream flavors and created golden memories.
“It amazes me how popular ice cream is, how many people stand in line to wait for ice cream. We have a karate team that comes often. School events, like when they have their concerts, we always have to find out when those are, and we have to have extra staff. You get the ball teams, the families. People in the community really support us,” Wendie said.
Guests place orders at an indoor window and take seats on picnic benches, truck beds or their car’s seats. A yard on the side of Casciola’s – mowed, Wendie said, by her grandson – serves as a play area for younger guests. The Liberatores offer indoor seating to older visitors on extremely hot or unseasonably cool days.
Rain or shine, from April through the end of September, it’s ice cream weather, and people clamor to 3407 Millers Run Road to order their favorite off Casciola’s 27-flavor menu.
The most popular menu items?
“The berries sell the best, the raspberry, the blackberry, the strawberry. Lemon is one of the big top sellers – that surprised me,” Wendie said. “Traditional hot fudge sundaes are one of the top, our Oreo and Reese Cup Bellybusters, like Blizzards. Dirt Sundaes are top sellers; that’s a specialty sundae, kids all love that.”
What Wendie and Ralph Liberatore love most is connecting with their community through ice cream.
“It’s really the people that I’ve met along the way that have become like friends just because they frequent here. You just get to know them. Halloween, the kids come around and say, hey, it’s the ice cream lady,” Wendie said. “It’s, Spring’s here, good weather’s coming. It’s a happy thing. It’s just good memories.”
For more on making memories at Casciola’s, visit facebook.com/casciolas.
Iceburg’s
If there’s one thing Tony Menosky has learned in nine years of business, it’s that people are serious about their ice cream.
“People are set in their ice cream choices. They want what they want. They will not get something else,” laughed Menosky, who opened Iceburg’s in Canonsburg with his wife Cathy nearly a decade ago. “People are addicted to ice cream. We carry so many choices because there’s something for everybody.”
There really is something for everybody at Iceburg’s, from rich, creamy vanilla soft serve – “I’ve had people say, your vanilla takes me back to when I was a kid, the way ice cream used to be,” said Menosky – to Pittsburgh Pride hard ice cream to Dole Whip, introduced four seasons ago.
“It’s really big in Disney. It’s lactose-free, it’s kosher, it’s non-dairy, it’s everything you don’t want,” Menosky said. “We’re so happy to have something like that as an alternative.”
Recently, Iceburg’s made an ice cream flex, adding affogato to the expansive menu that also boasts light fare.
“Last year, we got those big, giant Italian espresso machines. We do frappes and coffees. Our biggest surprise is the affogato. It’s an Italian dessert which is basically just espresso over ice cream. Our coffee junkies just love it. Anytime somebody tries it, they’re just shocked and feed everybody in their group a spoonful,” he said.
A spoonful for you, a sample for you – it’s communal enjoyment that makes ice cream such fun. When Iceburg’s first opened, Canonsburg was on the cusp of revitalization, and the blue building on the corner of West Pike and North Jefferson was one of the few things to do downtown. People ordered at the window and enjoyed ice cream on the sidewalk or in their cars.
“Now, the town’s booming. It’s so nice to see,” said Menosky.
Iceburg’s has since expanded, and folks are invited to order and indulge in ice cream inside the sweet parlor around back. Whether guests enjoy Iceburg’s inside or out, a sweet treat in the heart of Canonsburg is always a great experience – for both visitor and owner.
“It’s all about the people, it really is. And the dogs. We see dogs pulling their owners down the sidewalk because they know they’re getting ice cream,” Menosky said. “We’ve watched people push their babies up in strollers, and now the kids come up to the window by themselves. It’s Cheers, where everybody knows their name. It’s incredible to grow with a community. That’s what we have done.”
To connect with Iceburg’s virtually, follow their Facebook page at facebook.com/iceburgsicecream.
Lovie’s
Nostalgia is among the bestsellers at Lovie’s Frosty Twist, which opened at 109 South Main St. in Houston ten years and 11 summer seasons ago.
“You will find old-fashioned things at our shop that a lot of people don’t carry: banana splits and dip cones and crunchies and wet walnuts. Flavors like butterscotch. Root beer floats. Malt shakes – not everybody carries malt. It is more of a classic, or a throwback, if you will,” said Jennifer Sirakos, who co-owns the seasonal ice cream shop with her husband, Scott Sirakos. “One thing I will never change is the quality of our ice cream. It’s very high quality, and you can tell.”
The crowd favorite season after season, Sirakos said, is a medium twist cone – folks just love the shop’s vanilla and chocolate flavors together – but the local ice creamery offers about 30 flavors daily, including cotton candy and cake batter, which younger visitors can’t get enough of, and blackberry and black cherry, which satisfies adult sweet tooths.
“You could come, and people do, they try to go through all the flavors in a season,” Sirakos said. “It’s something fun to do.”
Of course, those flavors can be made into shakes and Lovie’s version of Blizzards or sundaes; a particularly noteworthy menu item is the beloved brownie sundae.
It isn’t just the cool treats on a hot day that makes Lovie’s a destination. It’s the care that goes into every cup, cone, shake – and moment.
“It’s named after my mother-in-law; she was Grandma Lovie. She was so sweet. If she were still here, she would’ve been so involved and loved it so much. We decided to name it in honor of her,” said Sirakos, adding the family found an elephant – which Frances “Lovie” Sirakos collected – when cleaning out the building that once stood where the ice cream shop trailer now stands. “Over time, it has become less about ice cream and more about making memories, the customers making memories, and having a spot to come for family time.”
Guests come for first dates. Couples bring their children for their first ice cream cones. Teams celebrate wins, and families mark occasions at the cash-only ice cream shop. Sirakos said one couple recently got engaged at Lovie’s.
“Their first date was at Lovie’s. (The future groom) said what he wanted to do was recreate the first date for her, so take her hiking and then come for ice cream and propose. It was like, my heart, oh my goodness. To know that’s a spot for them. We were, of course, thrilled. I was so thrilled to be a part of it, very honored,” she said.
Sometimes, Sirakos and her children Stephen and Sarah, who worked at the ice cream shop, will play customer and create their own Lovie’s memories together in front of the counter. It’s an honor for the family to play such a prominent role in the community; they don’t take it for granted.
“Our customers are very loyal. The support from the community – people really support us and have embraced us. I’m just always thankful for the community support. It really does mean a lot, being a small business. I don’t take it for granted at all,” Sirakos said.
Show Lovie’s some love online by following them on Facebook at facebook.com/people/Lovies-Frosty-Twist/100063771121604.
Turtle Twist
When Colleen and Jim Tatano brought a giant, fiberglass ice cream cone piecemeal from New York to Cecil Township 19 years ago, the couple never imagined they’d serve as a fixture of the community for decades.
“Honestly, I wanted to do this for five, six years. Garrett (Tatano, the youngest of two) was in first grade when we opened. I’m like, if you think I’m going to be doing this ice cream when he’s in college, you’re crazy,” said Colleen. “I never in a million years thought that we would be here 19 years later. It’s been a long time. It’s nice to be here.”
The community agrees. Drive along Nine-Eighty Road on a warm Sunday evening in the summertime, and you’ll notice a parking lot filled with ice cream lovers of all ages, some seated on the patio, others waiting in the Turtle Twist drive-thru, all smiling, abuzz with excitement for their favorite flavor.
Turtle Twist offers six flavors daily, including the flavor of the week, all hand-flavored inside the turtle-topped ice cream building by passionate staff. What sets the seasonal shop apart from others, along with hand-flavoring, is the Turtle Twist dishes out custard, not ice cream.
“We decided to do a soft serve custard because we had it at the beach,” said Tatano, noting custard differs from ice cream in that, along with at least 10% butterfat, egg yolks are also incorporated into the mixture for that extra creamy consistency. “We offer the milkshakes, sundaes, cones, the whole gamut. We also have an Italian ice, completely different from Rita’s. It’s more like a sherbet, or a sorbet, I should say. It’s lighter. There are no chunks of anything in it.”
Italian turtles, an ice-custard combo, and sundaes topped with chocolate turtles are popular, and non-dairy guests are often delighted to find they can order dairy-free Italian ice and slushies.
Turtle Twist also serves ice cream pies, a popular option for those celebrating summer birthdays, anniversaries and other events. And though the mouth-watering menu may lure folks to the Twist, the experience keeps them coming back for generations.
“We are a destination for a lot of people who come back into town,” said Tatano. “They will come and meet their friends or family here because they want to have Turtle Twist as soon as they get back. That’s actually really important to us, being a part of the community. There’s not a lot of places for kids to go, like teenagers or even early twenties … to just go and sit and talk. You could come here for a lot less than 20 bucks and enjoy a nice treat and a nice atmosphere. It’s a great date night.”
First dates have turned into romantic proposals at Turtle Twist. Over the years, Tatano said, she’s watched men get down on one knee, smiled at baby’s first ice cream and kept sundae stops a secret between herself and frazzled parents. The Tatanos have sponsored local baseball and softball teams, celebrated championship wins, and welcomed staffers back for their 11th year at the Turtle Twist.
“We enjoy seeing that,” Tatano said. “We love it – being part of the community and sharing our patio, giving the community a place to come.”
For more on the Turtle Twist community and directions to the iconic ice cream building, visit turtletwist.com.