Bye-bye Bauder's? Currently closed Des Moines ice cream shop's future is unclear

A famed Des Moines ice cream shop may be exiting the Ingersoll Avenue home it has occupied for over 100 years.

The scoop: Bauder's is "closed for the season" according to signage on its door at 3802 Ingersoll, though a real estate listing shows the 3,852-square-foot building is for sale with an asking price of $1.6 million, several times its $325,000 assessed value.

Real estate agent Mick Grossman declined to comment. A flier for the building, which also houses a beauty salon, calls it a "rare opportunity to own a property on Ingersoll."

Polk County assessor records show it was built in 1915. The building, last renovated in 1999, comes with an attached parking lot.

Kimberly Robertson, the owner of Bauder's, declined to say whether the shop will reopen in the spring.

"I have so many things in the air. I will address them as I can," Robertson said.

Jenay Baethke, owner of the neighboring Axis Salon Studio and tenant of Robertson, did not respond to requests for comment.

What is the future of Bauder's Ice Cream?

According to CityView, the shop has been for sale at least once previously. In November 2022, it quoted Robertson as saying she was looking to get out of the business.

“I’ve been here 51 years of my life, so I think it’s time that I just pursue options,” she told the Des Moines magazine. “It’s just a feeler.”

Generations of Des Moines residents have treasured Bauder's for its ice cream, part of the business since at least the 1930s. But it was first and foremost a pharmacy until 2016, the year after owner and pharmacist Mark Graziano, Robertson's brother, went to federal prison following his conviction for diverting thousands of narcotic pain pills and evading $577,000 in taxes.

Graziano handed the store over to his sister, its fate uncertain, though she has kept it in business.

The store's now less-clear outlook casts uncertainty over another Bauder's institution: the much-loved peppermint bars it has sold annually for about two decades at the Iowa State Fair. But there may be hope for those craving the cookie-crusted concoction.

More: How Bauder's peppermint bars became a fair favorite

Robertson owned a storage building connected to the former Donut King storefront at 1205 E. 33rd St. before it burned down last November. Located across the street from the main entrance to the fairgrounds, it had long operated as a warehouse for Bauder's.

The Des Moines Plan and Zoning Commission approved plans Feb. 15 for a new structure at the same address, with a familiar-sounding use.

"We can only keep about 250 pounds of ice cream at the fair. We go across the street two to three times a day," Graziano, representing the business, told the commission. "With traffic, there's no way to get ice cream to the fair from the store."

Namesake believed to have been Des Moines' only female pharmacist

The Ingersoll Avenue store came into the Graziano family in 1947, when Robertson and Graziano's father, Charles Graziano, partnered with then-owner Caroline Bauder.

But Bauder's name already had been a part of the city since 1916, when Bauder, believed to have been Des Moines' only female pharmacist, opened a store at 17th and Crocker Streets in Sherman Hill as a “handy counter for women."

She bought the Norman drug store on Ingersoll in 1923 and renamed it, moving her business there.

Bauder began advertising the pharmacy's ice cream in the Register in the late 1930s. When Charles Graziano bought out the Bauder family in 1961, he decided to refine their frozen offerings.

“We would be in the back room figuring out what flavors we wanted, and he would say, ‘Oh, honey, that is just lush. That’s the best,’” Robertson told the Register in 2017.

After taking over from her brother and closing the pharmacy, she turned to the institution's sweeter side, renaming Bauder’s Pharmacy as Bauder’s Ice Cream.

“We are a family of pharmacists, so if I said ice cream was my best compounding, you should know how seriously I take this," said Robertson, herself a pharmacist.

Addison Lathers covers growth and development for the Des Moines metro. Reach her at 608-931-1761 and ALathers@registermedia.com, and follow her on Twitter at @addisonlathers.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Future of historic Bauder's Ice Cream 'in the air,' owner says