“We’re about all things yummy”

Sugermeyer’s Sweet Shop and Ice Cream Parlor on Lafayette square in LaGrange, GA opened July 4. Sugermeyer's offers a wide variety of ice cream flavors, plus individual specialities such as homemade cinnamon rolls, fudge and fresh baked cookies.

On their first date, Deanna Sugermeyer kidded her future husband that with a name like Sugermeyer, he ought to open a candy store.

“We’ve joked about it all our lives,” Dave Sugermeyer said.

After 28 years of marriage, they decided to go ahead and start dipping ice cream and selling fudge.

The couple, along with their daughters Tiffany and Amanda, moved to LaGrange in 2006 after three hurricanes damaged their home in Florida.

“We were tired of rebuilding our house. Tiffany was getting ready to start LaGrange College, and Amanda was going into middle school. It was a good time for a move”.

During a visit to LaGrange where former neighbors had moved, the family decided to make the move north. They brought their marine finance business with them and while settling into life in a new city, they still occasionally talked about opening a candy store.

“When this spot on the square became available it felt like the right town and the right location,” Dave Sugermeyer said.

Opening the store was a family project and currently they are the only four employees doing everything from picking flavors of ice cream, packaging the fudge or mopping floors.

Sugermeyer’s Sweet Shop and Ice Cream Parlor has 24 flavors of Blue Bell ice cream – the third largest-selling ice cream in the country – along with packaged candy, fudge, fresh baked cookies and cinnamon rolls and milk shakes. Currently, the best selling ice cream is Coffee Toffee.