Milky Way opens for season, marking unofficial start to spring in Regina

The Milky Way opened its doors on Thursday morning, even with temperatures well below 0 C.

It has been a long-standing tradition to kick off the unofficial start to spring by lining up at the ice cream parlour, located on Victoria Avenue near Winnipeg Street.

“I think it’s the quality of our ice cream. It’s the real cream so it’s just absolutely velvety and delicious,” co-owner Carole Boldt said during the Greg Morgan Morning Show.

Every day features a flavour of the day. Thursday’s was pistachio.

We open our windows for the 2021 Season tomorrow at 11am! Can’t wait to see all of our customer’s smiling faces! #woo #milkywayicecream #springishereinsask 🍦 @ Milky Way Ice Cream https://t.co/35UhvoekAH

— Milky Way Ice Cream (@MilkyWayRegina) March 11, 2021

The Milky Way has been in business for 65 years with Boldt and her business partner at the helm for 41 of them.

She has no plans to close up shop.

“As long as we can still get off that chesterfield, we’re good to go,” Boldt said. “Our children will carry it on as they have been helping us and working with us forever.”

Over the years, Boldt has seen customers participate in the tradition at various stages of life.

“After 40 some years, we’ve started to see them as couples, they get married, they have children and now their children’s children are coming. So it has been a journey,” she said.

In one case, one man being transported by ambulance asked to stop at the shop one last time.

“He asked to go to the Milky Way,” Boldt said. “So they took him, and they even took him out of the ambulance and took him right to the window. It was his dying wish to have ice cream and, I tell you, it was touching.”