New ice cream parlour opens on St Mary's
A new ice cream parlour has opened on St Mary's on the site of the former Sports Mode.
Miller's is owned by Arthur and Hilary Miller (known as Art and Hils), who moved to Scilly from Okehampton last December.
(click on photos to enlarge).
Hilary has family on the islands and has visited several times a year since she was a baby. She is the daughter of Mike Pritchard, who runs the Scilly Cart Co.
Art told This is Scilly that the pair chose to make the move after more than 30 years working in London and Europe.
"We decided we wanted to come over and be with family, de-stress, and we love these islands and wanted to see out our lives here," he said.
Describing the business, he said: "We’re an ice cream parlour on one side of the building and we do coffees, tea, hot chocolates, cake and pastries on the other side. On the ice-cream side, we do ice cream sundaes, things like Knickerbocker glory, Brown Derby, Peach Melba etc. And you can even build your own, so you can put a donut or brownie or cookie or a waffle in the bottom, build it with ice-cream and then we've got loads of toppings so you can make it fun, build your own sauce and dessert style. We also do fresh fruit smoothies and other things."
There have been various rumours about plans for the Sports Mode site - including a possible restaurant - but Art said the couple had a firm idea of what they wanted to do from the beginning.
"We ran a coffee shop in Okehampton for a few years so we had experience on that side but we felt an ice cream parlour - something Kavorna used to do back in the day, as I understand - is a very seasidey thing. We wanted to do something contemporary and new and bright and fun. There's bright orange on the walls, which is the orange that’s in the Soleil d’or. We wanted to bring that brightness to the building."
Miller's is a takeaway due to its small size, but there is some seating outside, which Art describes as "a bit of a suntrap".