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Hi, I’m Susan, creator of Meltdown Ice Cream & Soda Fountain. My love of all things local began in 2012, when I joined Community Farmers Market as an art vendor - I was a photographer and sold photography and art at the market. Surrounded by beautiful, locally grown produce, I began exploring the different true-season flavors of what small-scale farmers in our corner of Kentucky have to offer. That summer, prompted by sweltering days spent at the farmers market, and inspired by the beautiful local produce and delicious homemade artisanal goods at the market, along with my love of ice cream, I started buying local dairy and my fellow vendors’ produce and products, and began turning it - churning it - into ice cream. I experimented making ice cream in various ways, and quickly became obsessed with the science behind making ice cream. Making an unreasonable amount of ice cream, I began packing it in jars, and bringing it to the farmers market to share with my vendor friends. Encouraged by my friends and my family, who all loved my ice cream creations, I began making even more ice cream and began offering it to my community, at the farmers market. It was a hit! I sold my photography equipment, bought a self-coolant ice cream maker, and began my little ice cream adventure!
We opened our scoop shop and soda fountain in the historic Quigley-Younglove Building in Downtown Bowling Green in October 2022. Built in 1837, our building is the oldest building on Fountain Square, and was a pharmacy for over a hundred years - it even housed a soda fountain in the early 1900’s! We needed our space to be functional, but it was essential to us to keep the integrity of the space. I get emotional thinking about all of the people that have passed though our little space - about all of the moments that have happened, and all of the moments happening now; about how a simple building can bring together a community, even across decades.
Meltdown offers unique ice cream and sorbet flavors, made from locally grown, real food ingredients. We pride ourselves in the authentic relationships that we have formed and built with our local farmers and makers through the years, and our community reaps the benefits of those relationships through tasty true-season ice creams and sorbets.We also pride ourselves in the relationships that we have created with our customers through the years. Our customers are our community. It is one of my life's pleasures to get to meet my customers face-to-face, talk with them, get to know them, serve them. Service to our community is as important to us as the delicious products we serve.
