Palm Beachers know that there’s long been nothing quite like the aroma of a hand-rolled waffle cone at Sprinkle’s Ice Cream shop.
For more than four decades, the whiff of those cones — Sprinkles was the first place to serve homemade cones on the island — has lured people from a block or more away.
The shop at 279 Royal Poinciana Way, has been the charming spot where families gathered after special events, a place where teens went to hang out and where shoppers popped in for some cool relief on a hot day.
READ MORE: Beloved Sprinkles Ice Cream to close its doors in Palm Beach
Since Therese Williams and her daughter, Taylor Morgan, opened Sprinkles in 1985, it’s been a place where island residents and visitors went to satisfy cravings for a cold, sweet treat, choosing from various flavors of quality ice cream, sorbet and sherbet, along with smoothies, sundaes and milkshakes. The shop has seen several ownership changes over the years, but the ice cream kept coming.
Not anymore, though. Sprinkles’ run will come to an end May 26, when it opens for its last day. Current owner Anson Ainsworth, who leases the storefront, says a planned extended closure for building repairs made it unfeasible to keep Sprinkles open. Ainsworth and his wife Cortney Berry, who bought the shop in 2023, are looking for another spot in Palm Beach County.
The loss of a quaint ice cream shop on Royal Poinciana Way may not be an economic earthquake, but it is another sign of how difficult it can be to run a small business, even a popular one.
Some might say that such change is inevitable. Ainsworth and Berry bought Sprinkles from Olga Cherkasova, who had bought it in 2016 from Donna Marks. She had in turn bought the business in 2002 from Tom Walsh and Frank Manley, who had bought it only the year before from the original owners, the Williams family — the first purveyors of those great-smelling cones.
READ MORE: Remember the time Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, visited Sprinkles in Palm Beach?
Many on the island will miss Sprinkles, not just for its flavors, but for its ambience — and maybe even the chance to run into a celebrity who stops there, as pop icon Michael Jackson did in 2003.
So as the days heat up, remember that you still have some time for a cooldown before Sprinkles closes. There are other places on the island to get ice cream, but it was nice for 40 years to have a shop that specialized in this classic treat — and the enticing smell of a freshly made, hand-rolled cone.
