Chris and Angela George have always loved Opelika and ice cream.
Last summer, the Opelika couple combined the two and started serving Opelika-inspired ice cream to the community from a cart. The Georges have since upgraded their beloved ice cream cart to a complete ice cream parlor after realizing how special their ice cream was to the Opelika community.
O Town Ice Cream sits on South Railroad Avenue with an eye-catching red-and-white striped awning.
Inside the parlor, filling up the entire left-hand wall, is a vibrantly painted mural that illustrates all things Opelika. The ice cream flavors continue to paint a picture of the town, as each one is named after something or someone who is meaningful to the Opelika community.
“Opelika people are very proud about Opelika and the history here, the heritage here, how we feel about our schools, how we feel about our parks,” Angela said. “It is just a very close community. Now people who come in here and don’t know about Opelika can learn about what makes Opelika special through our shop and through our ice cream.”
Chris said Angela named most of the flavors.
“I didn’t have anything to do with the naming part,” Chris said. “I wanted to name the flavors after ‘Star Wars.’”
“He has asked me three times, ‘Can we just have one "Star Wars" flavor?’” Angela said with a laugh.
Chris and Angela met in Opelika, and even though they moved to Atlanta for a period of time, they always wanted to move back.
“When I met Angela in Opelika, I knew this was where I wanted to end up,” Chris said. “She made me fall in love with Opelika.”
Angela said she desperately wanted to return to Opelika to give back.
“When we moved back, we wanted to find something that would help us get back into the community,” Angela said. “I prayed to God, and I said, ‘God, if you get me back to Opelika, I promise I will get really involved.’ I wanted to do something good for the place that we lived and for our kids. I wanted to be involved with the schools. I wanted to be involved with everything.”
Chris and Angela noticed Opelika was missing one thing.
“We love ice cream,” Chris said. “We realized that Opelika actually did not have a place you could go and get hand-dipped ice cream.”
The idea for an ice cream cart with flavors that told a story was born.
“When I was a kid, my favorite ice cream was Blue Bell’s rocky road,” Angela said. “I don’t like the rocky road with the marshmallow cream. I like my rocky road to have the mini marshmallows like Blue Bell’s version.”
O Town Ice Cream has a custom-made flavor, “Rocky Brook Road,” which has a double dose of mini marshmallows per Angela’s request.
“We knew if we named our ice cream flavors things like Chunky Monkey Park or Rocky Brook Road it would probably start a conversation,” Angela said.
And start a conversation it did.
Chris and Angela’s ice cream cart quickly became a community phenomenon.
“We had no idea the ice cream cart would take off like it did,” Angela said.
There were multiple times the line to get ice cream from the Georges' cart would include an hourlong wait.
“We constantly had people asking us, ‘Where is your shop located?’” Chris said. “’When are you going to open a shop?’ And we knew we wanted to, that part just took some time, but it has finally all come together. The timing of this has been incredible. The weather being the way it is, the people coming to support us they way they have.”
O Town Ice Cream officially opened its doors Sunday, Jan. 24, and has since been “telling the story of Opelika one scoop at a time.”
“We opened an ice cream shop in January, which is crazy,” Angela said. “It has been great. The community has supported us since the doors opened. We have been constantly busy, and it has been such a fun experience so far. We are truly thankful.”
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