Published: April 24, 2009 04:33 pm      

Ice cream spot opens in Clayton

CLAYTON — Christina Shepard and her husband, Daryl Odom, decided there just wasn’t enough for families to do in Clayton — so they opened Chippy’s Ice Cream Parlor.

“The store is named after one of our horses, Chocolate Chip,” Shepard said. “He’s a real stinker. He’s the thing my husband and I argue about the most.”

She said when she was trying to talk her husband into opening an ice cream shop she “sweetened” the deal by offering to name the shop after their high energy pet.

“He just loves that horse,” she said. “He’s the only one who can handle him. He is 3 years old and still bucks and rears up to box.”

She said the horse even kicked Odom in the head one day, resulting in a trip to the emergency room.

“My son said, “hey mom, guess where we went today ... the ER,’” she said. “He had to get eight stitches. I think it’s the only time I left he and Jacob home alone and they ended up at the emergency room.”

Shepard is the media specialist at Northwest High School, an Indianapolis Public School.

“I am also a company commander in the National Guard,” she said. “I just found out that we will be deployed to Iraq on May 26, returning June 2010.”

And she’s not the only one in the family with military experience. Odom works as an electrician for Local 41 and is a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserves.

The couple also runs a family farm and has a 14-acre farm of their own just south of Clayton on County Road 600 South.

Shepard said they wanted to open a business and saw the perfect opportunity with the town laundry mat closed.

“We just could not run it as a laundry mat, so we decided to remodel and open an ice cream parlor,” she said. “This town has four churches and a liquor store. The Clayton Café is the most popular place in town.

“We would have to drive all the way to Dairy Queen in Plainfield for ice cream. And my husband is a connoisseur of ice cream.”

The parlor offers 16 flavors of hard ice cream and soft serve. They have waffle cones, sundaes, and mix-ups.

Shepard said one of the most popular items are the waffle cones.

“Daryl makes them fresh every day,” she said. “We can’t keep them in the store. They sell out almost every night.”

They also have some special items like no-sugar-added ice cream and sherbet for those who cannot have dairy.

“I would say my favorites are mint chocolate chip in a waffle cone,” she said. “And I put everything on a sundae.”

Shepard is always looking to the future.

“I hope to add pizza when we grow a little more,” she said.

The couple’s son, Jacob Thayer, 13, also helps out at the shop. He attends Mooresville Christian Academy.

brenda.holmes@flyergroup.com