Every day seems like Father’s Day at Lindsay’s Boulder Deli, according to owner Lindsay Shaw. For 21 years, she has watched the parade of bliss only produced by a lick of a favorite frozen flavor.
“The kids who came in for a scoop with their dads when I first opened are now coming in with their kids,” Shaw says. “A lot of them get the same flavor they’ve ordered for years.”
The original Häagen-Dazs shop opened in 1976 in the former Valentine’s Hardware Store when the Pearl Street Mall was being constructed. Lindsay’s Boulder Deli holds the distinction of being the oldest operating Häagen-Dazs shop between the Mississippi River and California.
“I have ice cream in my blood,” Shaw says with a wide grin, but she is not kidding. Her dad opened a Häagen-Dazs shop in Atlanta, and her pastry chef mom helped pioneer ice cream cakes for the company, she says.
Ice cream calling
Shaw’s summers and after-school hours were immersed in sundaes, banana splits and hot fudge.
“I was giving out ice cream samples at 7, and I scooped my first scoop at 12,” she says. “I swore that when I grew up, I would never work in the ice cream business.”
Shaw moved from the south to Colorado and earned a psychology degree from CU Boulder. She was looking forward to a career in teaching when ice cream came calling.
“My dad told me the Boulder Häagen-Dazs was available and that my brother and I should buy it,” Shaw recalls. With the help of her family, Lindsay’s Boulder Deli opened in 2004.
From the start, Lindsay’s was designed to be more than a summer-centric scoop shop.
“I wanted people to be able to sit and get something to eat,” the proprietor says. “We started out with 10 sandwiches and three soups using recipes from my mom.”
More than cones and cups
According to Shaw, the shop sells more than 2,000 sandwiches a week, but ice cream still rules.
There are devout fans of Häagen-Dazs strawberry, coffee and vanilla varieties, and there are new flavors available like blueberry lemon sorbet. However, the No. 1 ice cream scooped at Lindsay’s Deli is cookies and cream, according to Shaw.
Through a recession, a flood, power outages, a pandemic and a slew of ice cream competitors, Shaw has maintained her No.1 rule.
“Everybody who comes into the shop gets a free sample, even the mom who says: ‘I don’t want anything.’”
Shaw credits her father with being her guiding light.
“My dad was my first mentor,” she says. “He just really loves ice cream: He’d rather work at my store than his shop. If he walked in right now, he would have a grilled cheese with bacon and a bowl of half coffee, half Belgian double chocolate chip.”
The shop is gearing up for Father’s Day on June 16 — “always a busy day here,” Shaw says. The seasoned scooper believes ice cream has always been much more than just another sweet dessert.
“People are coming for an experience and a memory. They sit like kids together and take selfies with their ice cream to save that moment.”