Aug. 29, 2023

A 10-year-old’s wish to open an ice cream shop someday has come true – at least in part.

LaDelle and Fourth Coffeehouse in Dell Rapids – owned by Samson Delgado’s parents, Aaron and Amie — has added SDSU Ice Cream to its offerings.

“When he was 6, he told us he wanted to open an ice cream shop,” Aaron Delgado said of Samson. “As parents do, we laughed and thought it was cute. He decided he wasn’t going to give up, and at 7, 8 and 9, he was still talking about it. … It was kind of endearing to see him so committed to it.”

Samson’s initial idea was to operate an ice cream cart, selling treats at baseball games, the park and the pool, Delgado said. His parents decided the easier way to start would be to sell ice cream in the coffee shop.

While the ice cream is available whenever LaDelle and Fourth is open, Mondays are the day for Samson, who is home-schooled, to work at the ice cream counter, Delgado said. First, he has to finish his schoolwork and any chores at home.

“We told him that as cool as scooping ice cream is and being part of the business, you have to do that stuff first,” his father said.

The coffee house serves six flavors of SDSU Ice Cream: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, Cookies ‘n Cream, mint – either mint chocolate chip or Grasshopper – and a rotating flavor.

To make it easier for moms who bring their kids to the coffee house, the ice cream is served in dishes rather than in cones, Delgado said. The shop, however, uses waffle cone batter to make “chips” to go with the ice cream.

Dell Rapids has a Dairy Queen, but LaDelle and Fourth is the only place in town to get ice cream by the scoop, Delgado said.

Samson is involved in making decisions related to the ice cream sales, his father said. They’ve talked about advertising – he thinks they should run ads in the newspaper – and they’ll have to decide whether to keep selling ice cream during the winter.