Palmettos Shave Ice wants to foster a sense of community with sweet treats, conversation

The Tradewell family wants Palmettos Shave Ice to be more than a place where people can get shave ice, flavored sodas or ice cream floats.

“We're hoping that people will sit and visit and conversate and really foster a place for community to happen,” said Morgan Tradewell, a student at Louisiana Christian University.

The Tradewell family includes Morgan, her father Tony, mother Darla and brother Marshall who will be a freshman at Pineville High School this fall.

The hours are noon-7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday but are flexible, said Morgan.

“Weekends may go later,” said Tony.

They plan to stick with those hours through the summer.

“Then as high school students, college students tell us what the average should be for them, we’re just really going to cater towards the community and what they want,” she said.

Customers were socializing while eating sweet treats on the patio Friday afternoon as word got around town that Palmettos was open at 1319 Military Highway right next to Po-Boy Express and across from Jack’s Food Mart and Harlow’s Donut & Bakery.

“We need business right here. We need to liven up the street,” said Alexis Blackwell who was sitting on the patio with Kaysin Taylor.

“We needed a little something and this is perfect,” said Taylor.

Palmettos didn't do any advertising other than what was posted on social media, mostly by customers.

“My brother-in-law posted it on Facebook that he was just here with his kids,” said Blackwell.

Seated at the table next to them was Robert Wells and his three-year-old daughter Sarah who were sharing a large bowl of blue bubblegum and whipped cream shave ice.

“We hunt down the really good snow cone stands, and we frequent them,” said Wells. “But I like this better. It’s light. It’s fluffy. The syrup is not as thick on the ice. It doesn’t fill you up as much. It just cools you off.”

“It’s perfect. It’s great. It’s way better than a regular snow cone. It’s soft and fluffy,” said Blackwell, adding that she thought the syrup was fresher than the ones in regular snow cones.

"We found the treat in Hawaii when we went for my senior trip back in 2022,” said Morgan, and they fell in love with it. They joked about bringing it back with them.

After they returned home, they missed eating it and that’s when they got serious about starting a shave ice business.

Originally, they were only going to sell shave ice, said Marshall. But their menu slowly grew to include sodas and ice cream. They added a soft drink machine and a friend lent them ice cream and milkshake equipment.

“We've really only got 3 machines in here. We've got the ice cream cooler, we've got the soda fountain and the shave ice machine,” he said.

But those three machines help them make different kinds of treats, such as stuffed shave ice which is shave ice with ice cream. They also have a variety of flavorings that they use for the shave ice and to make flavored sodas.

The shop resembles an old-time gas station complete with a decorative vintage gas pump out front and an old newsstand with menus inside. The building is new, but Darla said they wanted it to look like an old, repurposed service station to blend in with the area.

“We wanted it to look like it's just been here, part of the staple in the community,” she said. They didn’t want to stand out or look out of place.

“We're excited to be neighbors with Harlow’s and Hidden Grounds and Wayback’s. They're all great businesses and so we're just ready to add to that," said Morgan.

To encourage people to hang out, they have an area where people can play outdoor games like cornhole or bocce ball or whatever else can fit into their little niche on Military Highway.

“One of our workers over there has a hammock in her Jeep,” said Tony referring to Morgan.

One workday, she strung the hammock between two trees.

“And we laugh because we're over here, sweating away, putting landscape in,” said Darla, laughing. “And we look and she's in the hammock.”

Morgan told them she was working - she was busy setting up their social media.

Tony said there might be a few spots for others to hang a hammock and swing while doing homework and eating shave ice.

When the family was going to start the business, they were initially going to target students at Louisiana Christian University which is just down the road, said Morgan. But then Marshall’s friends got excited about the new venture. And PHS is not far from Palmettos.

The enthusiasm wasn’t only shared by students. Morgan said a lot of the older couples that walk down Military Highway in front of their shop, or those who eat breakfast at Harlow’s reacted positively when they found out what the shop was going to be.

An 80-year-old man came in while they were working on it and told them that it reminded him of a place that used to be on Main Street where he used to buy root beer floats as a kid, said Tony.

“That's been kind of fun, because that's the idea,” he explained. “We made it look old fashioned, just a place to slow down and have conversations and a sweet treat.”

He thinks a lot of stories will be told about what Pineville used to be like and what Pineville is now that will be really special.

"We're excited to bridge the gap between generations and different communities and just really all come together,” said Morgan.

Visit Palmettos Cenla on Facebook or palmettos_cenla on Instagram for more information.

This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Palmettos Shave Ice brings sweet treats to Pineville