Popular ice cream shop Handel’s sets opening date for new Columbia location. Here’s when
An ice cream shop that has been popular in Forest Acres has now set an opening date for a location in another busy part of the Midlands.
Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream announced on social media that it will open a new shop on Aug. 8 at 252-M Harbison Boulevard. That’s in the Harbison Court shopping center that is anchored by a Hobby Lobby store.
The first 100 people in line at Handel’s 11 a.m. Aug. 8 opening on Harbison have a chance to win free ice cream for a year, according to posts on Handel’s Instagram page.
The ice cream shop will be in a spot that formerly was home to a Freshe Poke restaurant, right beside an Outback Steakhouse.
Handel’s started in 1945 in Youngstown, Ohio, where founder Alice Handel used fruit grown from the garden in her backyard to add to her own ice cream recipes. The company now has franchise locations in Alabama, Arizona, California, Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
Handel’s is known for having dozens of flavors and making its ice cream fresh, in-house every day. In May, a Handel’s opened in the Cardinal Crossing development in Forest Acres, and it immediately proved popular, with lines of people often queuing up for cool treats on hot summer days and nights.
Harbison Boulevard has remained one of the Columbia area’s top retail districts. The Columbiana Centre mall is there, and the area features a host of restaurants, bars, big-box stores, clothing shops, theaters and more just west of Interstate 26. About 31,000 cars per day travel down Harbison Boulevard, according to state Department of Transportation statistics.
