Dairy store undergoes renovation

Listen up, coneheads, we have good news and bad news.

First, the bad: No cones or sundaes of lip-smacking Babcock ice cream will be served at the Babcock Hall Dairy Store – steady yourselves now – from sometime in January until July 1. That’s because the Dairy Store, as we have known it, will cease to exist.

Which brings us to the good news: The Dairy Store will reopen this summer in a spiffy, sparkling-new edition. The store’s first renovation since it opened in 1951- more than 6 million ice cream cones ago – will begin in January and cost $450,000.

A substantial portion of the bill will be covered by a generous donation from John and Donna Hansen of Onalaska, Wis. John Hansen earned his bachelor of science degree in meat and animal science from UW–Madison in 1960 and five years later founded Kwik Trip Inc.

Here’s reassuring news for those not wedded to the concept of a cone: Packaged ice cream, cheese and milk will still be on sale during the six-month transition period at a location below the store on sidewalk level.

Cones can’t be served, says Tom Blattner, administrative director of the Food Science Department, because “the temporary location is only 159 square feet, and we would have to meet restaurant code in order to prepare food, which isn’t possible in that space.”

For those who simply must have a midday dollop of, let’s say, the venerable orange custard chocolate chip, Babcock cones will continue to be sold at Memorial Union and Union South.

“We’ll lose 60 to 65 percent of our store’s revenue for those six months,” says Blattner, “but the renovation is overdue.”

The dairy cases and some kitchen equipment are a half-century old. That’s good if you’re a ’50s museum, but bad if you’re trying to run a dairy store on the cusp of the Third Millennium.

And then there’s the problem of the entry space. Right now, when you walk through the front door, you see a few dimly lit tables and hear a very loud hiss from exposed utility pipes overhead. It seems like you’re in a steam tunnel, not a store.

The space, which was never finished after an addition to Babcock Hall in 1990, will be transformed by the renovation. A new ceiling, furniture and lights — plus removal of a glass partition between tables and store — will create one continuous, good-looking space.

“It will look much more like the retail spaces on State Street,” says Julie Grove, liaison architect for Facilities Planning and Management.

Customers will enjoy not only vastly better aesthetics, but also better service. Freezer space will be added, the apparel display now high on the wall will be lowered to floor level, and the tiny sandwich bar, which Blattner says has really taken off since it opened five years ago, will be expanded.

So if you want to see a 50-year-old dairy store, hissing pipes and all, you’ve only got a few weeks left. Then for six months, if you can’t go to the Wisconsin Union, you’ll have to eat your Babcock ice cream SOC (Straight Out of the Carton).

And as short-term sacrifices go, dear coneheads, that is one delicious deal.