This Vintage Texas Ice Cream Parlor Still Churns Every Scoop on 1927 Machines

Nobody has ever regretted ice cream at 10 p.m. I have tested this theory more times than my doctor would like, and the verdict holds. What I have regretted is the soft, gummy, air-whipped stuff that passes for ice cream in too many grocery freezers.

Which is why I keep thinking about Beth Marie’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream on the courthouse square in Denton. Picture marble and hot fudge, a checkerboard floor, and a scoop so dense the spoon stands up in it.

Below, I will walk you through the flavors, the 1927 machines, the sundae that feeds a whole table, and how to get there.

A Soda Fountain Frozen in the Wrong Century

The shop sits inside a building on West Hickory Street that went up in 1876, which makes the bricks older than the state fair. Step through the door and the room does the rest. A black and white checkered floor runs to a long marble counter lined with swivel stools.

Above it hangs a pressed tin ceiling, and behind the counter a big mirror and stained glass catch the afternoon light off the square. You will half expect a fellow in a paper hat to slide a phosphate down the bar.

The owners describe it as having the atmosphere of an old fashioned ice cream soda fountain, and for once the description undersells it.

Here is the part I love. This is not a chain’s idea of vintage, dreamed up in a design office. The parlor opened in 1998 with the specific goal of pulling people back to a downtown square that had gone quiet, and the retro look was the bait.

It worked. The square is now the busiest few blocks in Denton, and the ice cream shop is one reason why. The three newer parlors borrow the same look, checkerboard floor, counter stools and all.

Did you know? The Denton County Courthouse across the street dates to 1896, so the view from the window is more than a century old too. Grab a stool by the glass and you get the courthouse for free with your cone.

Scoops, Sundaes, and One Very Serious Banana Split

Start with the case. On any given day the square location scoops between 48 and 64 flavors, and the menu shifts with the seasons. The owners have created well past 150 flavors over the years, and by some counts closer to 250.

I would need a loyalty card and several summers to work through them.

The number one seller is vanilla in a waffle cone, which co-owner Ken Willis has said is popular partly because it is easy to walk around the square with. He is right, but I would argue vanilla here is not the safe choice.

Fresh cream and 14 percent butterfat turn plain vanilla into something you eat slowly.

Then the sundaes. Hot fudge, of course, and a full old-fashioned lineup of banana splits, malts, shakes, floats, sodas, lemonade and limeade. The shakes and malts alone come in dozens of flavors.

One reviewer on the shop’s own site summed up a root beer and cherry ice cream float as “probably the most enjoyable drink I’ve ever had.” That is the kind of sentence people write about wedding cake, not soda.

Pro tip: ask for a scoop on top of hot cobbler. It is on the menu, it is rarely photographed, and it is the best cold-on-warm combination this side of pie a la mode.

The one everyone talks about is the K.W. Extreme Sundae. Eight large scoops, two brownies, a banana, two cookies, and eight toppings, served in a bowl the size of a mixing bowl.

It is named for Ken Willis, and it is built for a table, not a person. Bring friends. Bring a plan.

Flavors That Sound Like Dares

Here is where a small batch shop gets to have fun. Bee’s Knees blends raw honey with lavender. Baa-Baa Blackberry swirls blackberry through goat cheese and thyme. Hatch Green Chile arrives with a prickly pear finish, which is about as Texan as a flavor can get without wearing boots.

The naming is half the charm. Salty Dog is salted caramel. Wobbly Monkey is banana nut. Raspberry Truffle is dark chocolate with raspberry running through it.

For the shop’s 25th anniversary, the owners worked with the city manager on a flavor called North of Ordinary, a rum-flavored base loaded with cherries, pecans, chocolate chips, butter brickle and fudge swirl.

Local businesses get their own flavors too. A truck maker got Big Rig Crunch. A burger joint down the square got a honey whiskey flavor built with local honey.

When a town’s ice cream shop becomes the place companies go to celebrate, you know it has crossed over from dessert into civic institution.

My pick, if I were standing at the case? Bee’s Knees, one scoop, in a cup, eaten on a stool while pretending it is 1952. Then a second scoop of whatever the person behind the counter is excited about that week. They always know.

Ten Gallons Every Quarter Hour, the 1927 Way

This is the detail that turned me from curious to devoted. Every drop of Beth Marie’s is made in Denton on Emery Thompson batch freezers designed around 1927. They are the same style of machine the shop opened with.

Each one cranks out roughly ten gallons of ice cream every fifteen minutes or so.

Why does that matter? Because a batch freezer does not pump ice cream through long runs of tubing the way big plants do. It churns a small batch and sends it straight into the container, which is why the texture stays dense and the flavor stays clean.

Fresh cream goes in. Nothing gets whipped full of air.

The recipe is old school too. Fourteen percent butterfat puts this squarely in premium territory, and the cream is fresh rather than frozen. Every batch rests for 48 hours before anyone is allowed to scoop it.

That patience is why the first bite tastes like cold custard instead of sweet foam.

And the scale is bigger than the little parlor suggests. The team hand pours and mixes about 2,000 gallons a week at a production kitchen a short walk from the square.

The brownies, cookies and apple pie that end up folded into flavors are baked in house first. If you have ever wondered why the cookie chunks taste like cookies, that is why.

A Brief History of Beth Marie’s

The story starts with an empty building. In the late 1990s the west side of the Denton square had a vacant storefront that had sat dark for a couple of years. Bob Moses, an engineer who had spent decades at Texas Instruments, bought the building in 1998.

That same year Beth Marie and Dr. Randy Cox opened an ice cream parlor in the space and gave it Beth’s name. The idea was simple. Give people a reason to come downtown at night, and the square would come back to life.

The checkered floor, the marble counter and the vintage machine were all part of that first vision.

In 2003 the founders sold, and Moses stepped from landlord to owner alongside Ken Willis and a third partner, Jim Engelbrecht. Willis brought decades of restaurant experience, including long stretches at Grandy’s and Ruby’s Diner. Engelbrecht has since passed, and his wife Pat helps carry his share.

The new owners kept the name and the recipe and grew the reach. Weekly sales at the square location more than doubled within three years.

A second parlor opened at Unicorn Lake in Denton in 2009, a third in downtown Carrollton in 2017, and a fourth on Main Street in Grapevine in 2024.

Along the way the pints landed in Central Market stores across Texas and in about 50 restaurants, coffee shops and hotels across North Texas. Two delivery trucks now run as far south as Round Rock. All of it still comes out of Denton.

The town has noticed. The Denton Record-Chronicle readers’ poll has named Beth Marie’s the best frozen treat in town for 26 years running, and in 2023 it added a best customer service award.

The shop raised more than $45,000 for local nonprofits in a single recent year. Moses has said supporting the community was a condition he and Willis agreed on the day they bought it.

Is It the Oldest Ice Cream Shop in Texas?

You may have seen this parlor described online as the oldest ice cream shop in the state, still scooping since the early 1900s. I checked, because that is the kind of claim I like to be able to repeat with a straight face.

The building is from 1876, but the shop itself opened in 1998. Texas has older ice cream names. Galveston’s Purity Ice Cream started in 1889, and Blue Bell began churning in Brenham in 1907.

So no, Beth Marie’s is not the oldest. What it is, and this is the honest version, is one of the most convincing old-fashioned soda fountains in Texas, built the old way, on old machines, inside a genuinely old building.

I would rather have that than a plaque. A parlor that chose to make ice cream like 1927 on purpose, and has kept it up for more than a quarter century, is its own kind of history.

Tips Before You Go

Go on a weeknight if you want a stool. Weekend evenings on the square fill fast, especially when the courthouse lawn has music. The line moves quickly, and it gives you time to read the flavor board, which you will need.

Ask for samples. The staff are used to it, and the odd flavors are the ones worth tasting first. Anything with goat cheese, chile, or lavender in the name is a dare you should take.

Planning a party? The Unicorn Lake location has a dedicated party room, and the company caters weddings and church socials with a sundae bar. Ice cream cakes can be ordered ahead. If you cannot make it to Denton, look for the pints in the freezer at Central Market.

Hours run late, generally from 11 a.m. until 10 or 11 p.m. depending on the day, which makes it the natural last stop after dinner on the square. Check the shop’s site or call before a special trip, since hours can shift with the season.

How to Get There

Where: 117 W. Hickory St., Denton, TX 76201. The original parlor is on the west side of the Denton courthouse square, about 40 miles north of Dallas and Fort Worth up Interstate 35. Park anywhere around the square and walk.

Additional locations are at 2900 Wind River Ln. in Denton, 1020 W. Main St. in Carrollton, and 419 S. Main St. in Grapevine.

Save Room for the Square

Denton’s square is worth an evening on its own, with record shops, bookstores and live music spilling out of doorways. End it the way the locals do. Find the checkered floor, claim a stool at the marble counter, and order something you cannot pronounce with a straight face.

Then sit for a minute. Watch the courthouse lights come on across the street and let a 1927 machine’s handiwork melt slowly in your cup. Some places earn a return trip. This one earns a standing order.

Featured image: Ryan Ewing via Beth Marie’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream