With Dunkirk’s Big Dipper closed for the season, the real work is about to begin for owners Carmen Oliver and Terri Stoessel.

Presto Car Wash, which has been attached to the Big Dipper for about four decades, closed for good Sept. 27. While Oliver lamented the closing of his car wash, it signals a bright future for Big Dipper.

The former Presto Car Wash will be gutted of all things car wash and renovation of Big Dipper will begin.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Forty-six years after Oliver purchased the Big Dipper building, the business is now thriving and growing exponentially. But early on it was hard to imagine a future that included shipping ice cream across the country.

Born, raised and still living in Silver Creek, Oliver came to Dunkirk as an insurance man through Nationwide Insurance. The Dunkirk market had always been tough for Nationwide and Oliver was warned of the city and people’s inability to support stable sales.

Within a year Oliver was a million dollar producer on the back of his unrivaled people skills and through the support of the supposed tough market.

Oliver purchased the Big Dipper building, which was originally a dairy, and leased it to Country Fair with the agreement that one day he would take it over for his own business needs.

With his insurance business set up in the corner of what is now the Big Dipper, Oliver continued to thrive in the insurance business and eventually remodeled the building into essentially what is now the Big Dipper.

FROM SCRATCH, WITH LOVE

Big Dipper wasn’t the first or only ice cream show in town, but it has always been different.

First and foremost is Oliver’s dedication to his business. Oliver is 90 years old and works 16 hours a day throughout the Big Dipper’s open season.

Arriving bright and early each day, one thing Oliver enjoys is making the cream. Like everything else at Big Dipper, the cream is made from scratch, with the best possible ingredients.

For example, Oliver’s whipped cream is made using vanilla flavoring originally imported from Italy at a price that is considerably higher than what he could get it for elsewhere. But for Oliver it is all about quality and the difference in quality versus price just isn’t a proper justification.

Stoessel’s expertise is in the ice cream, which she has made, from scratch, for years.

Using scratch ingredients, it goes into the machine and comes out as delicious ice cream using only the finest ingredients. From there, Big Dipper ice cream goes into a shock freezer that blasts the ice cream down to minus 20 degrees.

The shock freezer is an aspect that few parlors in the area use, as it is expensive and time consuming. But once the product comes out of the shock freezer free of ice crystals, the quality of the product once again trumps all other costs.

From there it goes to the counter where it is kept cold until it is served by one of the familiar faces working the front end.

Many of those faces have been working at Big Dipper for the better part of a decade.

ONE BIG, HAPPY FAMILY

The Big Dipper has up to 20-22 employees at any given time, many of whom are young women from SUNY Fredonia who come back each year.

“Our girls are all college girls and we just have some exceptional employees,” Stoessel said. “We have some that have been here eight or 10 years. They just keep coming back every year. We have helped them get jobs in their field after graduation, many are teachers, and they still come back in the summer when they are on break.”

Stoessel, who is Oliver’s niece, began working at Big Dipper when she was 15 or 16 as a way to earn money and give her something to do after work.

Throughout the years many students have come and gone but all have been welcomed into the family. Many stories still resonate with Oliver and Stoessel, who said some of the thank you letters from employees over the years have brought tears to their eyes.

“Jessica came to work for us at 16. She gave us her resume from babysitting and then the following year, at 17, she got pregnant,” Stoessel said. “She called us up crying saying she was going to quit. We were kinda shocked and asked her why. So she told us it was because she was pregnant and the whole teenage pregnancy thing. We told her, ‘Being pregnant isn’t a crime, Jessica. It’s a child. We can deal with children.’ That really changed her life and she has been with us for eight years now and is a school teacher. She still comes back every summer.”

“Erin was going to settle for going down to Florida to find a teaching job because she couldn’t find one up here,” Stoessel added. “We told her she had too much money into her education to sell herself short by going somewhere the pay isn’t as good. So another girl that had worked for us for eight years had told us if we ever have anyone who is really good to let her know because her district was always looking for good teachers from upstate. So we put the two in contact and she ended up getting a teaching job starting at $45,000 a year. It all worked out great and they met each other here over the summer and became best friends.”

A THANK YOU TO THE COMMUNITY

There has been one common thread in Oliver’s career as a business owner in Silver Creek and Dunkirk: the support of the community.

“I just want to thank the people of Dunkirk and everyone else who has supported us for over 40 years,” Oliver said. “They’ve been so good to us. I want everyone to know why we are closing the car wash. People say, ‘Dunkirk is this and Dunkirk is that,’ but Dunkirk has been very good to us for 46 years. And we are going to continue to give them the same good service.”

Oliver and Stoessel repeatedly shared stories of customers coming from out of state, from counties far and wide and thruway attendants sharing stories of drivers getting off the Dunkirk/Fredonia exit and asking for directions to Big Dipper.

TAKING A LOOK AHEAD

The future is bright for Big Dipper. So bright that the business is expanding into the car wash building this off season.

Internet sales continue to increase, which is an area the business is looking to further improve upon.

Shipped in dry ice, ice cream is being sent far outside Chautauqua County while cupcakes and cookies are also frequently ordered via Big Dipper’s website.

“We get a lot of online inquiries because we are making a lot of new stuff,” Oliver said. “We actually just shipped a box of cookies to Terry Pegula, owner of the Buffalo Bills and Sabres. We make these cookies with insignias for everything and we just can’t make enough of them. We might have to get a bigger oven soon because we can’t keep up with the demand.”

Now the building needs to grow with the business.

Oliver is unsure exactly what the remodeling will entail, but it will likely include more front- and back-room space plus new pieces of equipment.

The front of the building could change as well with Oliver contemplating extending the front of the former Presto Car Wash to make it even with the facade of Big Dipper.

No matter what improvements are made, Oliver and Stoessel are doing it for one reason: to repay the people of Dunkirk and the surrounding communities for four-plus decades of support.

“We figure we owe it to the city,” Oliver said. “Anyone else at my age would’ve retired long ago, but we are going to spend quite a bit of money this year remodeling because we owe these people. They’ve been good to us. Dunkirk is just a nice place to be in business.”