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Local restaurant and ice cream parlor Ivanhoes tackles the struggles of the pandemic

MUNCIE, Ind.(NewsLink) – Up the road about 30 minutes away is a restaurant called Ivanhoes.

“It was just a small little corner; you’d walk up under the awning and place your order at that time. It was a very small little drive up,” Mark Soures said. Soures is the general manager and has been working there for 32 years now.

“It was just a couple days after my sixteenth birthday I started working here.”

Ivanhoe’s may look like a small-town family restaurant, but it is much bigger than that on the inside featuring 100 different flavors of ice cream and shakes.

“When they first opened, you know, we just had the vanilla, the chocolate and the strawberry.”

But when owners Ivan and Carol made their trip down to Florida yearly during the winter, on the way back, they would have a new flavor to add to the restaurant,

Every year when they opened, they would add a couple new ones, and she got to 100 shakes and 100 sundaes. She decided that was a good number and she would stop there.

The restaurant is no exception to the struggles of the pandemic.

“Its been a very hard struggle especially in the beginning when we was just doing carry out only. We want to tell the customers thank you for standing with is. They would line out in the parking lot after they’ve places their order. We did the best that we could possibly be able to do.”

Despite everything, Soures says the people, are what keeps him going.

“It’s so much fun when somebody gets their ice cream and they’re like 'oh wow' or you see a kid smile. It just makes it so much fun.”

For any comments or concerns, contact the author tbkonieczny@bsu.edu