Ted Drewes Jr., the longtime proprietor of the iconic Ted Drewes Frozen Custard in St. Louis, died Monday, according to several media outlets in the St. Louis region. He was 96.
Family members confirmed his death Wednesday to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Here’s a Buzzfeed video from a few years ago about the business:
Ted Drewes Frozen Custard had several locations — starting in Florida way back in the late 1920s — and in the St. Louis area. But the one that opened in 1941 on 6726 Chippewa St. (aka Route 66) became the iconic site.
It wasn’t summer if a St. Louis-area resident didn’t make a trip to the southwest part of the city for a Cardinal Sin, a Terramizzou or other sweet delight after a baseball game or other event.
The stand, founded by Ted Drewes Sr., dates to 1929. But the Post-Dispatch reported the business blossomed under his son’s direction:
“The reason Dad went into the ice cream business was so he could play tennis all year round,” Drewes said in a 1981 profile in the Post-Dispatch. “That’s the difference between my father and me. I allowed myself to get captured by the business. He never did.”
At that time, Drewes said he spent 80 hours a week between the two stands, though he did allow that some of that time was for “goofing off,” like testing sundae toppings with a salesperson.
The affable Drewes submitted to a 15-part interview about 10 years ago (don’t worry; most of the clips are fairly short):
The recipe for the Drewes frozen custard is a secret, for obvious reasons. But Ted Jr. allowed that cream was a key ingredient, as was honey. The use of the latter was a happy accident during World War II rationing.
The stand ran out of sugar, so Ted Sr. sent his son to a local store to buy squeeze bottles of honey as a substitute. The honey wound up improving the custard, so it stuck.
Drewes also diversified the business’ income by running a tree lot at the Chippewa location during the Christmas season with firs and pines harvested from a family-owned farm in Nova Scotia. That part of the business dates back more than 70 years, so it holds its own tradition in the St. Louis area.
Ted Jr. gradually ceded the responsibility of running his business to his son-in-law, Travis Dillon, who now is co-owner. Ted Drewes Frozen Custard is in no danger of disappearing.
Regardless, a lot of people in the St. Louis region and beyond will be a bit sadder.
We’ll have more about arrangements when we get them.
(Image of Ted Drewes Jr., left, and Travis Dillon of Ted Drewes Frozen Custard courtesy of Guy Randall)
R.I.P. Ted Jr. Thank you for your years of hard work.