Scoops on Center: Spicey Pickle owner adding adjacent sweet shop

Rotella set to open Scoops on Center

Left of Center with Joshua Maloni

GM/Managing Editor

Aaron Rotella’s reason for opening a second Center Street business is simple:

“I like ice cream,” he said Tuesday.

His Scoops on Center is set to open this month – right next to Rotella’s The Spicey Pickle. The business will join the commercial strip now home to Hurtin 4 Curtains and Totally Buffalo Store.

When You & Me ended its lease earlier this year, Rotella said he decided to convert the building back into four units. The clothing boutique used two spots (what is now Totally Buffalo and Scoops on Center).

More importantly, “I’ve been wanting to try ice cream for quite a while – and I keep getting pressure from my workers,” Rotella joked. “They always say I'm going to do something, I never do it. So, this time I stuck to my guns.”

Scoops on Center will offer Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream, plus vanilla and chocolate soft serve, in cones, dishes, milkshakes and its own “Whippin’ Whirlpool” mixes.

Rotella is carrying over the Pickle’s “choose-your-own-adventure” type of food and flavor building.

“We have a topping bar, like the Pickle’s, where you could get Kit Kat, Heath bar, Oreos. Like a build-your-own sundae bar, basically,” he said. “We’ll have a build-your-own bowl, and you could choose your toppings; and we're going to have loaded ice cream nachos.”

“We're planning on having the dip cones; and possibly we're going to have sundae specials,” Rotella added. “We’ll have a special of the week – whatever you want to do – and possibly we’re looking into ice cream tacos.”

Scoops on Center, located in the unit between Totally Buffalo Store and The Spicey Pickle, will serve Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream.

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Scoops on Center will likely have eight ice cream flavors, and then “I’m probably going to do a sorbet,” Rotella said. “People have been asking me about a dairy-free option. So, I may get another four (flavors). So, possibly 12.

“But with all the different options, you pretty much can make whatever flavor you want. We’ll have a lot of sauces, like strawberry and cherry and black raspberry. A lot of different options.”

Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream is a 40-year-old Michigan business that, per its website, offers more than “70 unique flavors of ice cream, sherbet, sorbet and yogurt, including sugar-free and fat-free options, at over 800 ice cream parlors, restaurants and retailers in 30 states.”

“One of my distributors, they sell that,” Rotella said. “I went to one of their food shows, and I tried it, and it’s very good. It’s a very good, quality product. It’s very similar to like Häagen-Dazs. It’s an upper-level ice cream.”

Though Rotella is still figuring out days and hours of operation, he said the plan is to have Scoops on Center be a year-round business.

“Yeah, we plan on possibly cutting a hole through the building, so you can enter into the Pickle,” he said. “We’ll be a one-stop shop.”

Though Scoops on Center has yet to open, Rotella already has feedback from customers and people peering into the windows as he works.

“They seem pretty excited about it,” he said.

Their first thoughts? Well, they’re the same as Rotella’s.

“ ‘Ooh, ice cream,’ ” he said.

Scoops on Center is located at 465 Center St., Lewiston.

Scoops on Center