Old School Ice Cream made debut at Lund Mania

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

If you attended Lund Mania this past month, you may have have noticed a large colorful umbrella shading a bicycle and ice cream cooler making its way down the streets of New York Mills. The Old School Ice Cream Bicycle is one of the area’s newest business ventures, owned and operated by Aidyn Baune and Monte Briard, selling a variety of sweet treats to beat the heat. They made their business debut at the annual summer festival in July.

“That was super fun,” said Baune. “It went well for us, it was a little slow at the start, but we went to the parade and we basically sold out of all of our ice cream—probably 200 items—which was awesome, we weren’t expecting that. It was good to see how supportive the community was of it too, because it was kind of a spur of the moment thing.”

Baune said she was browsing Facebook Marketplace one day when the bicycle retrofitted with a cooler and shade umbrella caught her eye.

“It just popped up and I talked with Monte and we thought it would be fun,” said Baune. “The bike itself was in good condition, we got it from a guy who ran a bunch of bikes in Brainerd with his family, so that was neat. We just went through branding and then we had to get licensed. Finding ice cream was difficult for us because you can only sell ones that are for resale that have the ingredients on them. We were hoping to be out earlier this summer and that’s why we got such a late start, it was just difficult to find ice cream.”

The duo plan to bring Old School Ice Cream to NY Mills, Bluffton and Ottertail this summer to begin with and fill in their calendar wherever possible. Briard said that they plan on making it to the Music in the Park events in Ottertail this summer. They are making their own schedule for this year, but plan to branch out into public and private events in the coming year.

“We were going to this year, but since it’s so late in the summer, we’re not booking out this summer,” said Baune. “But next year, we’re hoping to do events—weddings, parties and all that.”

So far, Baune and Briard have enjoyed their initial ice cream run and are both looking forward to the future of their business.

“We’re selling ice cream, it’s so fun,” said Baune.

“Nobody’s mad at you,” smiled Briard.

“Exactly,” said Baune. “Just seeing smiling kids come up with a little bit of change to buy a popsicle, it’s so cute. Popsicles are a big hit with the kids.”

Old School Ice Cream will also be seeing a new employee with Baune’s sister, Alayna Baune, joining the team.

“We’re excited for her to get out and do it and to bring it on the road, because we’ve just been in Mills so far. It’ll be exciting to go to new places and see new faces,” said Baune. 

A Facebook page is in the works for the business and people can keep their eyes peeled for the ice cream team in neighboring towns this summer during the festivals. They emphasized their gratitude to the support of the community.

“Thank you,” Briard started.

“Yeah, that’s the biggest thing, we’ve been just so grateful for all of the support,” Baune continued. “Mills is a great place to be.”