Celebrating Ice Cream History in Old West End

By: Nathan Elias

If a free, four hour ice cream social in Toledo’s OWE doesn’t sound like a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon, it might be time for a change of priorities.

Saturday, September 11 from 2 – 6, Toft’s One Quality and Zeroll Ice Cream Scoop will be sponsoring the four hour free event in honor of the 75th anniversary of the invention of the Zeroll scoop, a revolutionary tool in creamery that was created right here in Toledo.

The social is all thanks to a strange chance occurrence. When OWE resident Jeff Nelson was shopping eBay for postcards, an avid connoisseur of ice cream scoops informed him that he resided where ice cream history changed forever.

“His passion for his collection and world of dairy stuff and ice cream scoops was very contagious,” Nelson said.
When Nelson wrote a neighborhood newsletter announcing the historic competence of the building, word spread to Toft’s and Zeroll and they offered to sponsor an ice cream social gathering by giving scoops and ice cream.
The event will take place 2410 Robinwood Avenue, the very building where Sherman L. Kelly created the device in his OWE home in 1935.

The Zeroll scoop went on to become the most well-known and widely used scoop in ice cream history. Its ability to compress ice cream while scooping makes the device more economical for creameries and vendors.
“When you hold a scoop horizontally and put an ice in the scoop it starts melting immediately,” he said. “The aluminum is conductive, the liquid is conductive, and it’s pretty amazing.”

The development of the Zeroll was a very intricate process.

“His first thought was to have this thing electrified, it turned out the to be too hot,” Nelson said. “Then he hit upon the idea of having the thing hollow with a liquid inside. There was a lot of experimentation of the shape of the scoop and the void inside and the exact thickness of the walls. The fluid is a proprietary mixture.”

Nelson has had this idea in his mind for two years after learning about the history of his home. For the past few months, he has spent most of his time planning the social.

“For a long time I’ve had this thought that the Old West End could use another fair weather event besides the OWE Festival,” he said. “

These historic ice cream scoop prototypes from will be on display and other scoops will be given out throughout the event. The event will feature live music, a children’s play area, magicians, and other entertainment.

Nelson encourages anyone in an interest in volunteering to help scoop ice cream or with children’s activities to email him at jeff@dischord.com

For more information, visit the event Facebook page (login first) at