The family is ready, father Kees Sr. and son Kees Jr. are preparing the ice cream every day early in the morning. “If you want fresh ice cream, you have to. And it goes on all day long. Popping, especially with the weather forecast of tropical warm,” says Kees Jr. enthusiastically. “Everyone likes ice cream. Whether you are young or old, rich or poor. And an ice cream is not just any ice cream, if you make it with love from scratch with fresh products. You can smell it and taste it.”
The Baars-Tichelaar family has been making ice cream according to traditional methods since 1963. “The stracciatella is made according to grandpa’s recipe,” grandson Kees Jr. says lovingly. It’s still written in a notebook in Grandpa’s handwriting.
He proudly shows the nostalgic ice cream machine that he used to prepare ice cream with his grandfather as a child. “We hardly use these anymore, behind we have the machines that are completely up-to-date, but this evokes beautiful memories of the past as a child with my grandfather and grandmother.”
Nostalgia
The case exudes nostalgia. On the walls are black-and-white and color photos of the family business, but also countless certificates from grandfather, grandmother, father Kees Sr. and Kees Jr. Countless cups in the shop at the counter. With the highlight and also the largest cup ‘Ice cream parlor 2020-2021’.
Matty van Wijnbergen
Behind the display case are son Ties and mother Regina. “I’m so proud that we won this award, I would have loved to have seen my parents experience this,” Regina says as she deftly operates the cash register and pays for one ice cream after another.
It was a surprise that her two sons growing up in the business would take over. They left, went to study and work in Amsterdam. Kees Jr. (32) says: “I worked in sales in a tailor-made suit on Herengracht, my brother Ties (27) was a mechanical engineer. But the blood flows where it cannot go.” His mother smiles at him. “In our case we always say: ‘the ice flows through the veins’. And now we are all in the business as a family. Just like I used to with my parents.”
“I worked in sales in a tailor-made suit on Herengracht, but the blood is crawling where it can’t go.”
Photo Matty van Wijnbergen
The summer months are the high season, seven days a week. Because the family always works with fresh products, they have a varying range, except for the classics. This morning the regular greengrocer from Schagen brought boxes full of fresh strawberries. “If there are no melons, we have no melon ice cream.”
Like his grandfather, grandmother, father and mother, Kees Jr. himself attended the IJsvakschool. “But the best learning experience as a child was here with my grandfather and my father.” Kees Jr. also develops his own recipes such as the ‘spiced coffee’ ice cream, with coffee, cardamom and white chocolate.
The jury report stated ‘Here is love for the profession’, quotes Kees Jr. ‘We have been taught that from an early age. Grandpa is at the base and look there is the next generation.” He points to his daughter, the youngest scion who is standing behind the display case with an ice cream on the hand of grandma.