Prices, wares frozen at ice cream stand

Tucked in a parking lot just off the clotted traffic on the beaten-down path is a little oasis of cool.
Make that an oasis of cold, icy cold.
Make it ice cream cold and you’ve hit on Chandler’s Ice Cream, a spot near the highway to get a frosty treat or maybe a bite to eat.
“I like it. I come here whenever I’m in town,” says Thurman Durrette, of Afton, as he hoists a cone piled high with chocolate and vanilla served soft and swirled.
The small ice cream stand, just off River Road near the CVS Pharmacy and in the parking lot of Tractor Supply, is low-key and seasonal and very family owned. It’s also fairly affordable, its prices not being raised in three years.

Out-of-the-way, but cool

“You might lose a little bit of margin, but in this economy you do what you can to make it easy for customers to come to you,” says owner Jon Lee. “You really can make a living and still sleep at night.”
Mr. Lee and his wife, Kelly, opened the shop, named after their son, Chandler, 12 years ago. They picked the apparently out-of-the-way spot because it was close to U.S. 250 without being on it. It’s also oddly visible from the highway and has easy access for traffic and pedestrians.
“If you’re in a shopping center, no one sees you from the road,” Mr. Lee says. “Where we’re at, people can still see us, they don’t have to fight traffic to get to us; and my landlord, Chuck Kincannon, is great to work with. We had easy access to utilities — you can spend a lot of money running lines and hooking things up — and the city didn’t have nearly the regulations that the county wanted to put on us. It was the right place.”
With everything on line, the Lees cranked up the business.
“We had planned to open more shops and name each after one of our children,” he recalls. “Most of the people I know who own several [restaurants] tend to go back down to one. You can’t be in more than one place at a time.”
Ice cream was not Mr. Lee’s original big idea. With a degree in hotel/restaurant management from James Madison University, he had thought about opening a Charlottesville restaurant after serving as manager of the Elks Lodge in Waynesboro. A friend, however, convinced him try the frozen confectionary business.

‘Pretty smooth’

“He told me there were 300 restaurants in Charlottesville and to try something different. It’s worked out well,” Mr. Lee says. “We keep the menu simple and the pricing simple — everything is priced in 25-cent increments to include tax — so it’s pretty smooth to run. Because the shop is easier to run than a restaurant, I’m not working 24 hours, seven days a week and I have more time to spend with my family.”
Customers appreciate it.
“If R. Williams Paving likes it, it has to be good,” laughs Rich Williams, as he assaults another tall cone of ice cream. “It’s a great place to stop during work.”