The owner of Moorenko’s Ice Cream, a longtime staple of downtown Silver Spring, says she is looking for a buyer for her business so she can focus on recovering from continuing medical issues resulting from being hit by a car in February 2024.
On Monday, owner Susan Soorenko, 73, told Bethesda Today that the decision to sell her business of more than 20 years is “heartbreaking.”
“I’ve been doing this for 23 years and I love the company, and I love the fact that we’re important to the communities that we’re in,” Soorenko said.
Soorenko recently closed her longtime shop at 8030 Georgia Ave. in downtown Silver Spring and another she operated in Washington, D.C., for the foreseeable future while she deals with medical issues following the collision that occurred in the District.
A sign taped to the shop window of the Silver Spring shop said the closure is due to “medical reasons.” The Source of the Spring first reported the shop’s closure.
Moorenko’s Ice Cream was launched more than 20 years ago in Montgomery County and operates a manufacturing plant in Silver Spring. The company uses dairy products from hormone-free and grass-fed cows from local, family-owned farms to make a variety of ice cream flavors, according to the company’s website. Those flavors include Cherry Stracciatella, Cookie Overload, Honey Lavender, Peppermint Stick and Wild Blueberry. In addition, Moorenko’s produces an array of fruit sorbets and vegan ice creams.
At this point in a typical year, Soorenko said she would have been interviewing and training local teens for positions at the ice cream shops and managing the shop schedules and the production ice cream. Moorenko’s ice cream is also sold at stores around the region, as well as at the Broad Branch Markey in Chevy Chase and Henry’s Sweet Retreat in Bethesda.
But dealing with pain from her injuries and recovery has made it difficult to operate the shops and oversee production and delivery of the ice cream, Soorenko said.
“I just have to focus on getting healed up and being able to walk again without limping and being in a lot of pain,” Soorenko said.
She said she was struck by a car while crossing a street on the way to visit a restaurant customer in the District’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood. For about a year, Soorenko said she tried to “stave off surgery” for as long as possible, but now she is less than a month away from surgery to replace her left hip.
She said she may also need to have her right hip replaced after she recovers from the initial surgery.
Looking for a buyer
Soorenko said several people are interested in buying her business, and she’s open to speaking with others as well. If a sale goes through soon, she’s hoping the shops in Silver Spring and the District’s Capitol Hill neighborhood can reopen.
“I had hoped that it would be sold already so that as I’m recovering from surgery, I don’t have to worry about having to order cocoa. But I would say [the sale] is imminent,” Soorenko said.
The sale will be bittersweet for Soorenko, who kept the company afloat through the 2008 recession and through the pandemic.
“Letting it go has taken a lot of thought, a lot of consideration, a lot of soul searching, but I really think that in order to keep the quality of the company where I would want it to be, somebody else needs to be running it,” she said. “So [I’m] heartbroken, but also things change.”
