ScootS 'N ScoopS

Sorry to say this has closed and the scooters are being sold

This is Scoots 'N Scoops in Ben Wheeler, Texas. It is, quite literally, an ice cream shop and motorbike/scooter/motorcycle museum. The town of Ben Wheeler is a very small, unincorporated town in East Texas, first settled in the 1840s, and is named after a postmaster in the town in the 1870s. Apparently it is the feral hog capital of Texas. A fire in the late 1800s devastated the town and just when things were on the rebound, the area was hit with a smallpox epidemic that reduced the population from around 500 to less than 250 residents. The area did well with oil drilling and cotton farming until the 1950s or so when that mostly dried up in the area (currently there is a resurgence of both in the area). Businesses closed and people moved away. The school district was consolidated with nearby towns.

Then came Brooks Gremmels. He grew up in the area, left and went on to be a successful stock broker, concert promoter, and oil and gas man. He also had a passion for two wheelers and raced motorcycles. When he decided to retire, he wanted to come back to Ben Wheeler. What he found was that there wasn't much left. So, he built his house on the outskirts of the town and then started pushing to restore and revive the town. The end result is that he purchased just about every commercial property in town, restored and rebuilt them and offered the spaces to retailers for $1 per year if they would agree to open a business and maintain a certain number of open hours per day.

Scoot 'N Scoops is his personal storefront on Main Street in which he decided to decided to open an ice cream shop he could display some of his collection in. The day my wife and I stopped in, the lady working the ice cream counter mentioned that Gremmels was planning on building a large scale museum in the town because he had "many, many more motorcycles than we could ever put in here." Unfortunately I just read a couple weeks ago that Brooks Gremmels was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and his outlook isn't so good.

With that, I present to you Scoots 'N Scoops in Ben Wheeler, Texas. 

If you are ever in the area...GO! It's great!

Logo

Sitting outside in front of the building:

Confession: I went originally because I had been told about

 "an ice cream shop out in the middle of nowhere with a Doodle Bug in it."

 Here it is:

Thanks to the "Doodle Bugger"

I was curious if this small town was on Google Earth.

Sure enough it is and this is the street view taken from my monitor.

Webmaster