Sheboygan's ice cream tradition, from Zurheide Ice Cream Company to High Road, is nearing the century mark. Take a look in this week's Throwback.
SHEBOYGAN - Sheboygan has had a long-time love affair with ice cream despite always being "cooler near the lake."
In 1925, Arno W. Zurheide opened Zurheide Ice Cream in Sheboygan at an 11th Street location, according to Sheboygan Press clippings provided by the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center.
In an era in which relatively few homes had air conditioning, having an ice cream treat became a popular way to beat the heat back in the early 20th century.
As word got around about the firm, Zurheide in 1927 opened Zurheide's Ice Cream Parlor, at 926 Michigan Ave., which helped get the ball rolling for the company.
Shortly, the company opened a new production facility on Michigan Avenue. That new plant was capable of producing substantial quantities of ice cream. In the 1970s and 1980s, the plant produced about 1.7 million gallons of ice cream annually, which was sold in eastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.
Arno's son, John A. Zurheide, joined the firm in 1949 and took the reins in 1959 from the elder Zurheide. Founder Arno Zurheide passed away at age 95 in 1996 and his son John A. Zurheide passed away at age 82 in 2017.
After 80 years of business, several seasons of falling sales and rising ingredient costs led to the family-owned company's demise in 2008. Things wouldn't be quite the same without those 5-quart buckets of ice cream you could buy at the grocery store.
The building was shuttered, but it sprang back to life late in 2013 when Petaluma, California-based Three Twins Organic Ice Cream purchased the building and the equipment, according to a Press clipping. Three Twins founder and CEO Neal Gottlieb stumbled across an online auction for Zurheide's shuttered equipment and facility. He ended up buying it, along with the Sheboygan space, which he refurbished and modernized. By August 2014, ice cream was once again made at the Michigan Avenue plant. The plant was the second to its Petaluma, California, plant.
Three Twins, with its corporate headquarters in Petaluma, further cemented its commitment to Sheboygan by shuttering its Petaluma production plant in 2019 as a result of high operating expenses.
The company, which specializes in organic ice cream, had scoop shops in Marin and Napa, California, along with Three Twins-licensed ice cream parlors as far away as Tokyo. The ice cream was available in several stores, including Whole Foods nationwide, as well as at local stores like Piggly Wiggly, Goodside Grocery, Festival Foods and Woodlake Market.
During the Three Twins ownership, the building has received interior and exterior upgrades that today would likely make Arno Zurheide proud of what happened to his firm.
However, financial pressures, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, caused the company to announce its closure in April 2020.
But ice cream production in the city was saved again in November 2021, said a Press clipping, when Atlanta-based High Road Craft Ice Cream bought the facility and started production of craft ice cream from the plant with about a dozen employees. CEO and Founder Keith Schroeder said the plant will produce some signature flavors, such as caramel pecan and bourbon burnt sugar ice creams. The company is working to explore regional flavors in Wisconsin to add to its scoops of flavor, Schroeder added.
Keeping ice cream frozen is an expensive part of ice cream production, Schroeder said, so having two plants, one in Sheboygan and another in Marietta, Georgia, is helping grow High Road Craft Brands.
The tradition of Sheboygan ice cream production continues to keep the taste of ice cream going in Sheboygan with High Road Ice Cream.
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This article originally appeared on Sheboygan Press: Zurheide Ice Cream kept Sheboygan summers cool on Lake Michigan
