Smiley’s Ice Cream breaks ground for new location

ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, Va. (WHSV) - Smiley’s Ice Cream in Mount Crawford officially broke ground on their new location this week.

The store has been open for four seasons at their current location, but Derek Smiley, Owner of Smiley’s Ice Cream, knew it was time to get a little more space, so the shop will be moving down Dinkel Avenue to a bigger property.

Smiley purchased 2.5 acres of the Don Litten Lot off Dinkel Avenue in hopes of having enough space for parking and plenty of outdoor dining options for customers.

At the start of the year, Smiley’s received a grant from the Governor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development (AFID) Fund.

The grant qualifications state 30% or more of the ingredients to make a product must be Virginia sourced, and Smiley said their product uses 90% or higher.

With this grant, Smiley’s was awarded $20,000 and the county matched that for a total of $40,000, which they plan to put toward equipment for the new shop.

The plan was to begin construction at the start of February, but Smiley said the construction process saw some delays with all of the snow, ice and rain the month of February brought to the area.

“It is what it is. Our builder is hopeful that, usually there is a rainy month every spring, and I guess we’re hoping that that is the rainy month and from here on out we’ll have adequate construction,” Smiley said.

Smiley said the weather put them back about a month, but they are excited to be underway and hope to have the doors open to the community by July or August.

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