Eight years ago, while Cheryl Watts and her husband, Dave, were courting, they spent a lot of time dreaming of ventures to pursue together.

An ice cream shop, they decided -- one with some heart and a sense of community.

Dave had just the spot in mind. At the corner of a busy Brandywine intersection lay a dilapidated building that had morphed -- since its 1860s construction -- from general store and post office to church to antiques emporium.

The structure was so run down, "you could've condemned it, really," Cheryl recalls, but in 2002 her husband, a retired builder, "took it on as a special challenge."

Today the Ice Cream Factory and Cafe serves 24 flavors of old-fashioned frozen custard, plus such Maryland favorites as cream of crab soup and rock fish.

"People come in and are rushed or under pressure, but they seem to be different in here," Cheryl says. "Strangers talk to other strangers. . . . I think the old vibe of the place and the building keeps people not as guarded as they are everywhere else."

Out front are picnic tables and umbrellas and a big front porch with benches for lingering. The same elderly couple comes in just about every afternoon. They order two chocolate-vanilla twists, Cheryl explains, and adjourn to the porch, "to enjoy their ice cream and each other."

Last October, Dave died at age 73. He'd been the type to sit at a table and talk to every person who walked through their door. "You sat down with him for two minutes and you felt like you knew him all his life," Cheryl says.

Dave's picture hangs on the wall, with a sign that calls him "A Friend Amongst Many." Many who still happily idle in the sweet community built from love with his girl, Cheryl.

--Ellen McCarthy (July 18, 2008)