Jumbo Ice Cream Parlor compiled by Gord Conroy

When you entered the Jumbo, a U-shaped counter greeted you and you could choose the chrome, swivel stool of your choice...and then you had your choice of shakes, sundaes or cones. And, if you had a family who knew the old- time popular songs, you may even have known at least a few words of the 1925  78 RPM hit, “I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream.”  

And we did. 

There was nothing fancy about the Jumbo. There was no juke box as in some of the restaurants during the 1950s. However, there were newspapers and we kids would devour the sports pages and argue while we enjoyed our sundaes or shakes and spun around on the stools. All the ice cream freezers were right there behind the counter and we dreamed about being locked in over night.

In 1937, the property at 122 Ontario which became the Jumbo was vacant.  It had been the home of Model Tire Services in 1935, but by 1939, Vernon’s Stratford Directory has the Jumbo listed there.

And so, proprietor Dennis Edward Laughton (1891-1965) first opened the doors about 1938 at 122 Ontario Street not far west of Knox Church. For those of us growing up in the 1940s and early 1950s, an alley to the Beacon Herald was immediately to the east of the Jumbo toward the church and then the Uptown Bowling Alley above the shirt factory in the former livery stables. Before that, it had been Stratford Tire and Battery for many years at 132 Ontario Street with the Bowling and Recreation Club upstairs at 136 Ontario. 

William Fraser from Stratford remembered the early prices for cones. In the 1940s, if you could not afford 5 cents for a regular 2 scoop cone, you could get 1 scoop for 3 cents. 

The Jumbo was not fancy. It would never be mistaken for Rankin’s across the street and down the block at 81 Ontario Street, beside Swanson’s Jewelry Store near Downie Street but it was part of Stratford’s social fabric just the same. The Jumbo had  many flavours, more than anywhere else in town at the time, and Irene Ellis Freiburger remembers on If you grew up in Stratford...FB, that two bricks of ice cream sold for 35 cents. And for the next 20 years, the Jumbo scoop was in.  

Serving customers behind the counter in 1950 were Den and Bert. Paul Schlemmer remembers working there later on with Bruce Schlotzhauer where Stratford Place is now. 

Garth Logan has this memory. "The Jumbo was actually a separate building between the old livery stable building & where Floral Craft was. The Laughtons owned it back then and made their own ice cream out the back." One of Garth’s favourite memories was of his dad taking him there on Saturdays.  He said that  “...I could have as many milkshakes as I could consume but I could only ever get part way thru the second one much to my dismay...”  Milkshakes could be regular, double or triple.

By 1961, the original Jumbo Ice Cream location at 122 Ontario Street is vacant. The Jumbo had been relocated at 6 Ontario Street beside Marten’s Sports Centre at 2 Ontario. Tamara Schlotzhauer, niece of Bruce, remembers the owners were Percy and Edie Schneider who purchased the business from Dinny Laughton. Her uncle, Bruce Schlotzhauer, bought it in 1960 and after brief stays at other Ontario Street addresses, he moved it to 17 Ontario Street, where it remained until it closed in 1966. 

This is a photo of the final location of the Jumbo Ice Cream parlour right beside British Mortgage & Trust, now Scotiabank. This photo, circa 1963, courtesy of Vince Gratton, shows this south side location near the Court House during this time period.

In 1965, It was sold first to Elmer Atkins and then to Scott Payne who then sold to Brian Thomas. By 1967, Vernon’s Stratford Directory confirms that the location was no longer Jumbo Ice cream. It now housed Thomas Coffee Shop and British Mortgage & Trust had become Victoria & Grey Trust.

John Dyke remembers this story of Elmer Atkins. His family and the Atkins were next door neighbors. “Elmer had a big old car from which he removed the back seat, so he could carry the milk cans. Sometimes on a warm summer evening he would load the neighboring children into this ‘cool old car’ to take us to the Jumbo for ice cream.” 

Many of us whose memories go back to the 1940s and 1950s remember the original location. Vince Gratton remembers it this way. “It was a one-story frame building. Nothing short of a lean-too. It was torn down about the same time the Jumbo relocated.”

The look didn’t matter. The Jumbo was always busy. Homemade ice cream. With a taste that grows more delicious with each passing year. What can we say? That’s the scoop.

Jumbo Memories 1940s.

In the 1940s, the standard two scoop cone was 5 cents, and you could get 4 scoops piled on for 10 cents. If you were really short of money, you could get 1 scoop for 3 cents.” That memory comes from William Fraser. As does this addition. “A brick in the 1940s cost 10 or 15 cents and, often, on the way home from the movies, my mom would buy a brick, take it home and cut it in half and we would eat the whole thing, because we only had an icebox and could not keep ice cream.”

David Drane has a similar memory of good times at the Jumbo. “My favourite was a chocolate shake made with chocolate ice cream and chocolate milk with extra chocolate syrup. I think it was ten cents in the late fifties. One time three of us went together and got a banana split and I think that was a quarter. We were all stuffed when we finished it.”

Jumbo Memories 1950s.

Vince Gratton remembers that they would stop in on the way home from the Lions Pool in the 1950s and he would “... get a Maltshake if I had the coin.”  Bob Hart remembered that a Maltshake “... was thicker because they put a scoop of powdered malt in it.” Milkshakes could be regular, double or triple. It was a busy place.

Bill Douglas remembers that the Jumbo had the best milk shakes. I remember they had aluminum holders for large cone shaped paper cups which fit in them. The shake came in large metal containers which would fill the cup 3 or 4 times. They only had chocolate and vanilla but they were filling. When I was buying them, they were 25 cents.

Many kids who delivered papers for the Beacon Herald would head to the Jumbo after pay days to spend it all. Paul Lameront has this memory from 1958-1959 when he delivered papers. The Beacon Herald was behind the Jumbo. Weekly, on Saturdays, the carriers had to go into the Beacon to pay their portion of our collection money. In those days a weekly subscription cost about 35 cents. Now you can only imagine the carriers’ profit! The Jumbo was the next stop after paying our bill. I remember a double scoop butterscotch sundae served in a tin dish. Remarkably we still had money left over.

Jumbo memories 1960s.

There was a juke box in the south side location at 17 Ontario Street. Vince Gratton thinks it might haver been owned by Dutch Meier, who was in that business. Meier later became mayor of Stratford, and Gratton remembers this comment from Meier: "Want to make money? Feed them and entertain them."

Sandy Keane remembers that there was a Felix the Cat clock in that south side Jumbo location when she was in high school. The tail was the pendulum.

Doug Hughes explains about the making of the ice cream and the selling.

My father-in-law owned the Jumbo Ice Cream when it was beside the V&G. All the Ice Cream was home made in the basement of the Stratford Hotel with the flavouring coming from the Kist Beverages Lab. as well as a place in Goderich. We would make this Ice Cream starting about 3 A.M. both tubs and bricks. The refrigeration units were there as well. I forget how many different flavours we had, but it was around twenty. I finally was able to convince Elmer Atkins to make a coffee flavored Ice Cream which I loved when we travelled into the United States and stopped at a Howard Johnson's. I was working the counter one evening and after the swimming pool closed a lot of the kids would come in for their treat. One young lad asked for a 35 cent cone. That at 5 cents a scoop was a hand full. I had to write his chosen flavours down on paper first, then build the cone from the hardest scoop on the bottom first, then work my way up to the softest on the top. This way I had a better chance of handing it to him without it tipping over. I would say as soon as you touch the cone, you owned it. We need another place like the Jumbo in town, however it is harder to get the flavouring, proper milk etc. and keep the prices down so that it would be a treat you could enjoy frequently. Source: If you grew up in Stratford...FB