Snow cones bring summer relief

LR stands offer traditional, unusual takes on popular treat

It’s hot out, and promises to get hotter. But rising temperatures mean sales season for Little Rock’s snow cone stands.

It’s a dessert of many names and varieties, even just in the United States. It may be Italian ice, pumped out of machines and scooped in Little Italys, served with a side of salty lupini beans. Cuban and Puerto Rican varieties predominate in Florida and the East Coast. Mexican raspado flavors may include sweet-and-spicy chamoy, made with pickled fruit and chili. Hawaiian shaved ice has feathery shards with tropical and East Asian flavors. Movie theaters sell granular-iced snow cones.

Little Rock’s proximity to Louisiana seems to have led New Orleans-style sno-balls, with fluffy ice, a variety of flavors and perhaps a topping of condensed milk or flavored cream, to popularity here. On Kavanaugh Boulevard in Hillcrest, Cajun Sno has been around for 30-plus years, with Andy Howington owning the stand since 2015.

“It was in a place where I could pick it up, and I decided to take a chance and go for it,” he said. Most of its customers drive there, but he does enjoy a decent amount of foot traffic in a relatively walkable neighborhood.

It’s open until 9 p.m. every day.

“We get people after dinner. We get people coming on dates. They get one and go to the movies,” Howington said. “We have a lot of regulars, people who like snoballs who come in and get the same thing every day.”

He does gig work in the off-season, after Labor Day when Cajun Sno closes.

In-season, he makes the syrup himself with assistance from a flavorist from the SnoWizard company in New Orleans.

“What makes them different is that they’re called ‘sno-balls,’” Howington said. “In Arkansas, people say snow cones, and that’s fine. But the Louisiana tradition is to call them sno-balls.”

In terms of product, Howington emphasized the smooth softness of his ice — how he shaves it is a proprietary secret. Tiger’s blood, a combination of strawberry and coconut flavoring, is the most popular flavor “by far.”

Although the Global South appreciates the refreshing mix of cold, sweet and salty — Margaritas, for instance, or limeades from the Middle East, Thailand and India — Cajun Snow’s sweet-and-sour pickle flavor goes unloved.

“A lot of people bristle when they see that,” Howington said. (For his part, he suggests trying it alongside the cherry syrup.)

Across town, at 2727 S. Arch St., 13-year-old Raeghan Coleman has run Brainfreeze Snowcones and Snacks in a parking lot stand across from her father’s auto repair shop since 2018.

Monica Coleman, her mother, owns Brainfreeze with her husband, Dee, of the aforementioned Coleman and Son Automotive, but she insists that’s just for legal reasons.

“I’m just on paper because I’m old enough,” Monica said. “My daughter is the one who works it and runs it.”

Brainfreeze was Dee’s idea, meant to teach Raeghan how to count money. They bought the pink-and-turquoise trailer stand (Raeghan chose the colors) in 2020 and operated all throughout the pandemic summer, aided by personal protective equipment, hot weather and the scarcity of anything else to do besides walk to get snow cones amid the closings and social distancing.

Business slows when it rains, but goes up with the thermometer reading — there is apparently no point that it becomes too hot to prevent people from getting the frozen treat. They buy nine of their syrups wholesale and make the others with trade-secret ingredients. (Monica did name Kool-Aid as one of them.)

On a weekday, Raeghan can make $90 or more, well above Arkansas’ minimum wage. Weekends see expanded hours and menu offerings beyond snow cones, like cheese dip. As at Cajun Sno, tiger’s blood is the most popular flavor.

Coleman and Son has been in business since 1969, one of the first Black-owned auto repair shops in the city. Dee is its third owner. Raeghan, for her part, isn’t into cars but is committed to continuing in the family’s entrepreneurial tradition.

“I plan on a brick-and-mortar in a couple years,” Raeghan said, on a piece of property up the street the family owns. She and Howington both said they try to keep prices down; Brainfreeze’s small size cones cost $1.

Not every snow cone shop in town makes the products selling syrup over ice. Jade Summerville runs the Breezy Scoop Italian ice food truck on Stagecoach Road, just off Interstate 430.

Summerville runs an online boutique, Jayde’s Closet. She encountered Italian ice, uniquely called “water ice” in the Delaware Valley, on a work trip to Philadelphia and fell in love.

“I was like, ‘I think this will be fun to bring to my local area,’” she said. “It was something I was interested in bringing down South.”

The Breezy Scoop opened in 2019 and is in its third summer at 8420 Stagecoach Road, where a collection of food trucks gather. The startup costs were high — Italian ice machines don’t come cheap — but it’s profitable today.

“Italian ice is made differently,” Summerville said. “It’s not like ice that you put in a thing and shave. It’s actually made in a batch.

Italian ice comes out of a machine like soft-serve and into tubs, from whence it is scooped and served.

“You know how sometimes you’re eating a snow cone — which I love, don’t get me wrong — and they don’t give you enough juice for the ice? With this, it comes out just like ice cream, and every single bite has so much flavor,” he said.

Snow cones are not particularly costly products to make: The ingredients, after all, are just frozen water and sugary syrup. Howington said it’s a business that relies on volume.

Raeghan works the business with her cousin, Avia Sparks. Howington has eight high school and college students working for him, and Summerville has two. Raeghan, for her part, works alone, passing time between customers cleaning the stand and watching movies.

“I’ve been very blessed,” Howington said. “The kids that I’ve hired, the guys and the girls, they’ve done great.”