By Jason Klaiber
Staff Writer
Sno Top’s price for a small cone may have nearly doubled since the Giordano family bought the business in 1974, but one thing has not changed: the popularity of the Manlius ice cream stand with everyone from dating couples to grandparents.
Now, after decades of operation under the family’s ownership, the business has changed hands to Jack Cushman, who also co-owns Stingers Pizza Pub.
Longtime Sno Top owner Vincent Giordano, 77, said his age and health issues contributed to the decision to sell the stand on Fayette Street.
“It was just getting difficult,” Giordano said. “I couldn’t put the hours in that I used to.”
He said the search for a suitable successor to carry on the Sno Top name turned into a three-year endeavor.
According to Giordano, the transition to Cushman’s ownership will not result in staff replacements or splits from current suppliers, which include Upstate Farms and Hill & Markes Inc.
Sno Top will continue making its often-requested black raspberry flavor from a homemade purée, and those family ties will not be severed entirely either.
Giordano’s granddaughter as well as his son Frank will continue picking up shifts at the stand, something the latter started doing in the mid-1980s.
Prior to Giordano purchasing Sno Top with his wife Kathy, he had spent the summer months helping to sell ice cream at the funfair Suburban Park.
The amusement park closed for good in 1973, and the following year the then-twentysomething Giordano took possession of Sno Top from his next-door neighbor growing up, Hildreth Vail.
Until 2001, Giordano also worked as a quality manager for military products at Carrier Transicold.
His departure from that job allowed him to devote more hours during the week to the ice cream stand.
With the passage of time, Giordano said he has seen former employees who secured their first paying job at Sno Top go on to become doctors and CEOs heading international companies.
Teenage customers of the past have later returned to the stand with spouses and kids of their own.
Giordano said he owes the success of Sno Top to the vendors’ treatment of patrons as family as well as the quality of the desserts.
“Everything we have is a high-end product,” he said. “We’ve never skimped on what we buy.”
Sno Top, founded in 1957, will open for the season on March 14.
