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I have a sweet spot for MacKay’s Ice Cream. It dates back to 1969 when, one sunny Sunday, my parents pointed their daughter-filled Pontiac Parisienne toward Cochrane to visit a friend. This friend, Mrs. MacKay, seemed extra special to me—not because she took tailoring classes with my mom but because she and her husband owned an ice-cream shop. And that day, the Caldwells were goin’ for ice cream.

Being in my purple phase, I ordered a grape cone, a single scoop because singles, sadly, were what we girls were allowed. But Mrs. MacKay served us doubles. (What’s a kid to do?) My grape was glorious—at least the first taste was. But then, as quick as a lick, my top scoop rolled off and thudded softly on the floor, my young heart with it. I just stared at it lying there.

Mrs. MacKay sprang into action. Though she’d been chatting with my mom, she didn’t miss a beat, or a scoop. Before I could say “uh-oh,” she’d topped me up with another purple scoop. That happy memory of Mrs. MacKay and my grape treat is frozen into my childhood taste buds.

MacKay’s Ice Cream has been a destination for such memories for over 60 years, ever since James and Christina MacKay started selling ice cream out of their general store on Main Street. They purchased the store after the Second World War when Christina, a war bride from Scotland, joined James in Cochrane. Initially, they sold meat, grocery items, jeans and such, but when the highway to the mountains was rerouted to the outskirts of Cochrane in 1948, something was needed to attract traffic back into town. The MacKays had just the thing, a recipe for soft-serve vanilla ice cream. When customers started asking for hard ice cream, the MacKays obliged, introducing vanilla, chocolate, maple-walnut and strawberry flavours. The rest, as they say, is ice-cream history.

The scoop was passed to daughters Robyn and Rhona when James died in 1983. The sisters grew the family business, adding flavours, expanding the factory, moving into wholesale and continuing to make MacKay’s a destination for ice-cream lovers. Along the way, they received a 1994 Canadian Women Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the University of Toronto.

And a few months ago, when the sisters decided to retire, their niece Meghan Tayfel and her husband Mark took over. As the daughter of the eldest MacKay sister, Heather, Meghan started her cool career at an early age by putting together cardboard ice-cream tubs for 10 cents a pop. When she received her social insurance number at age 12, she was promoted to weekend scooping, and she and a cousin even talked about running the business someday. Life took other directions, but years later, when Rhona and Robyn approached Meghan and Mark about taking over the business, the Tayfels gave it serious thought and eventually said yes. “The biggest draw for me was to keep it in the family,” says Meghan. “Besides, there aren’t many businesses where people stand in line and are still happy.”

The Tayfels are maintaining the status quo. They still make premium ice cream with 17 percent (!) butterfat from their repertoire of over 200 flavours (40 to 50 are on offer at a time), so MacKay’s will no doubt continue to be a tasty detour off the highway as well as a destination for those who want first-rate ice cream and top-notch memories.

Note: I had another grape cone a few weeks ago at MacKay’s. It was as creamy and good as in ’69, and not a drip hit the floor.

220 1st St. W., Cochrane, 403-932-2455, mackaysicecream.com.