As more COVID-related restrictions are being lifted and many businesses are reopening, we want to provide an update on what’s changed with us and how we hope to move forward.

How it works now

For most of 2020, we only took orders online via Square. We kept the doors locked so you could order on the web and call upon arriving for pickup. This past February, we hired some Scoopers and set up an order/payment station in our doorway. The warm weather means we’re too busy to take both online and in-person order, so you need to order in person at the door. Additionally, we still are not providing indoor seating, ordering, or restroom use.

The ordering process (it’s easy!)

• Put on your mask and come to the main door at 117 Market St.
• Check out the menu board and place your order at the ordering table
• Pay with a credit card (including Apple Pay and other contactless methods)
• Give us your name
• Move down to the second door (just north of the main one) and wait for us to call your name!

Some stuff that’s different

First, you may notice some changes in service.

• We’re not offering samples right now
• If you ask for a scoop on a cone, we still serve it in a cup with a cone on top. We’ll try to scoop in a way that makes it easier for you to turn it over and actually eat from the cone, but we can’t necessarily promise it’ll work!
• We are trying not to use cash! If you don’t have a credit card or contactless payment, we may not be able to ring you up without exact change.

We’ve all learned that brief hand contact is not a big risk for COVID-19 transmission, so you may be wondering if the above changes are necessary. They’re actually mostly a matter of efficiency. Our physical layout puts the Scoopers and cash drawer far from the customers. Since we only have 2–4 people working at a time, we have to reduce the walking where we can! We’ll think about ways to improve this, but you may have to wait until we’re fully reopened before requesting samples, getting cones without bowls, and paying in cash.

We’ve also simplified our menu:

• We only have 2 scoop sizes: Single and Double (currently approximately 4 oz and 8 oz)
• We’re only selling pre-packed pints
• We now make shakes from soft serve with select add-ins, so we have different flavor lists for shakes vs scoops

Some of these menu changes will likely become permanent, even as we increase our staffing and hours and get to full reopening (we are considering bringing back a Triple scoop option fairly soon).

The future

Short term

We’re still trying to keep our front of house staff small enough to avoid crowding, but we plan to bring on a few more folks soon. As we staff up in the next few weeks, we’ll start to stay open a little later and add a sixth day of service (and hopefully keep our lines moving even faster). As hours change, we’ll make announcements on social media and update the details on all the apps and maps.

We don’t know when we’ll have indoor service

COVID-19 vaccines are becoming widely available, and we know people are eager to gather inside their favorite foodservice establishments again! We look forward to inviting y’all back in, but we are not yet ready to announce a date. We can say that we probably won’t have indoor service any sooner than all official indoor mask rules and capacity restrictions are lifted. Again, this relates more to our shop layout than to the specifics of COVID-19 precautions. If we let customers in, we’d need at least one staffer dedicated to keeping an eye on occupancy, distancing, and masking at all times. Maybe this will work as we staff up more, but we can’t guarantee it.

We also might not fully reopen immediately once restrictions are lifted. In most years, we’ve had 15–20 Scoopers by the spring, with up to 7 working at once. We currently have three. We’re working on getting a manager and a few more Scoopers, so we can expand hours and serve you quicker with our current setup. But the transition to a full reopening may require us to close down for a week or two in order to hire, train, and schedule a way bigger crew.

Thanks again

We really appreciate everyone’s patience with us as we’ve rethought and rearranged practically every aspect of our business. Y’all’s kind words and enthusiasm has really kept us going through these challenges, and we look forward to welcoming everyone inside again when we can!

This winter we’re closing for the week of Christmas and the week of New Year’s. Our last day before this winter break was December 20th.

Our first day back will be Thursday, January 7th! Our hours will remain Thursday through Sunday 2:00–9:00pm, and we will be continuing to offer pickup-only service with online ordering.

If you need our ice cream in the meantime, you may be able to find stock at Bulldega or the Durham Coop Market. We wish you all a safe and happy holiday season!

So far, our fall/winter social distancing hours have been Thursdays through Sundays 2:00–9:00. We’ll be closed on Thanksgiving day, November 26th—which is a Thursday, of course. To make up for that, we’re adding two extra open days that week. We’ll be open on Tuesday and Wednesday November 24th and 25th.

If you want to pick up pints, you can just order them the same day via our Square pickup site. Since we’ve got so many special orders and pints to make, we won’t be selling hot drinks or ice cream by the scoop on Tuesday or Wednesday. 

You can also place a special order for an ice cream cake or pie, for pickup any day that we’re open. These require a minimum 4-day lead time, so if you want to get a special order item before Thanksgiving make sure you place your order by Saturday, November 21st!

Thanks for your business, and have a happy + safe holiday.

UPDATE AS OF MARCH 17:

After a lot of thought and consideration, we’ve decided to suspend all service (including takeout and pickup orders) for now. You can still purchase e-gift cards for use when our shop reopens.

Hi friends. We know everyone is concerned about the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak in North Carolina and the Triangle.  We are taking this very seriously—as we believe everyone should. Here are some of the things we want you to know.

We are taking extra precautions

When we train new staff, we always stress the importance of frequent hand washing. Now our staff are sanitizing surfaces and washing their hands more often. We’re also sanitizing more surfaces, like doorknobs. Staff will wash hands or change gloves anytime there is incidental hand contact with a customer. There is a hand sanitizer station for customers right by exit door (north of the main door) and we will have a pump bottle available near the register whenever possible.

We are sometimes a crowded space

Of course, beyond extra sanitary measures, the biggest recommendation from public health experts is to avoid crowded public spaces, especially if you are sick or in a high-risk population. Because of our physical layout and ordering/service systems, it is hard for us to exert much control over crowds. We need your help with this!

What can you do?

Look, we almost never want to turn away business. But we want to defer to experts, and we think you should stay at home if 

• you’re feeling at all unwell physically
• you’re in a high-risk population
• you’ve been asked to self-quarantine due to possible exposure to a confirmed COVID-19 case

Of course, even if you’re healthy and surrounded by low-risk people, the whole community is safer when public spaces are less crowded. If you do come in, you can help make that happen:

• Maintain a few feet of distance from other people
• Minimize hand contact with employees and other customers
• Enjoy your ice cream outside (at the time of this writing, the weather is lovely)
• Buy some pints (also available at Bulldega and Durham Coop Market) so you can wait longer for your next ice cream outing.

Also! If you’d like to leave a tip on a credit card purchase, ask the employee ringing you up to enter it, so there are fewer people touching the iPad. 

We are prepared for a downturn

This is the time of year when business usually starts picking up for us. But we don’t want anyone to feel guilty about practicing social isolation for the sake of community safety. If you’ve made that decision, we respect and appreciate you. We will not be upset about slower sales if it helps flatten the curve.

What about our staff?

You may be justifiably concerned about service industry employees. We just came out of our slow season, so we’re not yet at peak staffing levels. We also have savings and are making plans to take care of our staff if a downturn is serious. Most employees already have some paid time off hours available. If sales take a drastic hit, we will increase PTO balances so that folks working less can choose to pad their checks. In the event that we have to temporarily close up shop, we will still be able to pay current staff for several weeks.

You can help out while avoiding crowds

Before we go, a few more tips on helping local small businesses (not just us!) weather some tough times. 

• Avoid crowds by going to your favorite spots during their non-peak hours. In our case, that’s typically noon–2:00 and 5:00–6:30 on weekdays. You can use Google maps to see when other businesses are least crowded. 
• To help employers, buy gift cards now—then plan on waiting several months to use them:
  • Buy The Parlour eGift Cards
  • See a list of other local businesses with gift cards
• To help employees directly, leave bigger tips than you normally do

Thanks for reading this! We appreciate you.

Don’t hesitate to contact us via email or social media if you have any questions. We will post updates to our site and social media if needed.