Beloved Frozen Yogurt Shop Shuts Its Doors Forever
Chilly Delight Frozen Yogurt shop in Potsdam, New York will close its doors forever next month. Are US small businesses going extinct?
This article is more than 2 years old
We’ve all seen it lately; our special small businesses are closing their doors for good. This is the case with the small yogurt shop Chilly Delight Frozen Yogurt in Potsdam, New York. We grieve, and we move on. The small frozen yogurt hangout will close its doors in October of 2022.
Small businesses are the backbone of our country. And we must continue to support them as much as we can. But, sometimes, it’s not up to the consumer to change their buying habits. Sometimes, the issue is further up the supply chain than a typical person can reach. Such is the case with Chilly Delight Frozen Yogurt in Potsdam, New York.
Chilly Delight Frozen Yogurt
The iconic small-town yogurt shop has been under ownership by Duane M. Pelkey and his wife, Laurean B. Pelkey, since 2017. Previous owners Timothy A. and Lori K. Dillon opened the shop in 2013. Chilly Delight Frozen Yogurt only changed hands once in its history, showing how much loyalty small-town businesses can garner.
According to Pelkey, “Getting yogurt products at a competitive price is just too difficult. The majority of our customers will only go so far on a price point.” He continued to explain that vendors that supply what he needs for Chilly Delight Frozen Yogurt will no longer drive into Potsdam to deliver. The Pelkey’s have been driving to Syracuse—a larger city in New York—to obtain their supplies and keep prices down.
Syracuse is almost 142 miles from Potsdam, clocking in at about a two- and a half-hour drive. A trip plus the return trip eats up an entire working day. Not to mention the amount of gas the Pelkey’s have been using to travel in their vehicles to supply Chilly Delight Frozen Yogurt. Gas prices rose over the spring and summer, and travel became untenable.
The co-owners could pick up enough supplies for Chilly Delight Frozen Yogurt during their last trip to sustain the small business until October. They thanked all their customers for their support over the years. It’s just another reminder that no small business is immune to inflating costs, no matter how popular it may be. There is hope for the future of Potsdam’s businesses, however. According to a recent article and widespread reports, more and more people are fleeing to small towns. As remote work gives people the flexibility to live anywhere, it turns out the small town is winning.
The Future At Scoops
The Pelkeys are also co-owners of another small business, located just yards from Chilly Delight Frozen Yogurt in Potsdam. Scoops—an ice cream stand—has been in business for more than 55 years. It’s a town staple. More than that, ice cream vendors are readily available to deliver straight into Potsdam.
Although the small business won a matching grant through a downtown improvement project, the Pelkeys could not come up with the amount of money they would need to match that original grant. They were ready to begin construction, but the pandemic greatly affected traffic to thier ice cream store. They then decided to close Chilly Delight Frozen Yogurt and focus on Scoops.
Unthwarted, the Pelkeys will keep be able to turn their attention to Scoops, keep it running on a seasonal basis, and finalize a bunch of small improvements he has planned for the shop. As Tell Me reported, small businesses must find new ways to combat the Covid pandemic hangover. The battle for the small business continues to wage from finding staff to inflation. Chilly Delight Frozen Yogurt was just another casualty.
