Family finds sweet success: The Klines have been serving up cones for 32 years
Here’s another example of the types of stories I like to write: There’s nothing particularly newsworthy about all this, but it’s a look into a vanishing way of life and the subjects are real charmers. I also have been criticized for loving quotes too much, but in a story like this, the quotes are the story: The love the Klines have for each other, their rural Virginia background, even their age can all be found in the way they speak. Originally published in the Potomac News in fall 1997.
Perched above Va. 28 in Manassas Park, Kline’s Freeze is surrounded by bright, newly built shopping centers and chain restaurants. But the modest restaurant looks much as it did 32 years ago, when the Kline family bought it.
The lines of customers who wait outside at all hours of the day prove that the Klines must be doing something right.
It doesn’t hurt that Paul and June Kline love what they do.
“He loves to eat ice cream!” June said, preparing lunch orders on a recent Friday. “He grew up on a dairy, eating ice cream every Sunday, cranking it up. He can eat it every day of the year, all year ’round and never get tired of it.”
When Paul, who delivered milk for a local dairy, came home and announced the owner of the Tastee Freeze was looking to sell, June was all for it.
“Oh, that was simple,” she said. “He’d been looking at dairy farms. And I said, ‘honey, this is something we can handle.'”
Like all small businesses, this one had a few growing pains.
“It wasn’t a profit to begin with,” Paul, 75, said. The previous owner “only had the two ice cream machines. But you’re not going to sell that much ice cream when there’s snow on the ground.”
So the Klines added food griddles to the restaurant in January 1967.
“In the spring, when we had the food machines and the warmer weather. That’s when we started making a profit,” Paul said.
“Our foot-long hot dog has been our best food seller for years now,” June said, lifting the lid on the hot dog grill. “We make the homemade chili to put on it. We make everything to order. We don’t precook anything.”
There have been other changes, of course, in the years since the couple bought the restaurant. Cones that cost 10 cents, 20 cents and 30 cents when Kline’s opened now cost $1.10, $1.50 and $2.10.
“That just shows you how inflation is now,” Paul said, looking at a menu taped to the wall. “Now we can dip them in chocolate, you know? Man, we sell a mess of those. It’s just crazy.”
The Klines’ success, to hear them tell it, was almost guaranteed.
“This was the only thing between here and Centreville Road,” June, 68, said. “So the fire department would have turkey shoots and all right out back. They’d even have parades right down 28. You wouldn’t imagine that today.”
The fast-food chains that are now within walking distance haven’t hurt business one bit, Paul said.
“They’ll get their drinks somewhere else and come in here for their food and their ice cream. So in some ways, it’s helped,” he said.
Paul Kline walked into the kitchen area of the restaurant, with employees dodging him as they carried hot dogs, drinks and ice cream around him.
“I’d like to tell you exactly why. I’ve got the [soft] serve ice cream right here. We’ve got all the flavored toppings,” he gestured. “You just can’t get it anywhere else. There used to be Tastee Freezes and Dairy Queens everywhere. You’d think we’d have competition, but we don’t.”
The location has always been a good one.
“This has been a residential area for a long time now,” June said. “Now we get customers from Fairfax County.”
“We get customers from all over,” Paul said. “Woodbridge, Dumfries.”
“Right,” his wife continued. “Our problem is that we shut down at night while the customers are still coming.”
Kline’s Freeze is supposed to shut its doors at 8 p.m., but it rarely works that way on weekends.
“We’ll stay open later than that,” Paul said. “As long as they’ll keep coming in, we’ll stay open.”
He looked over his shoulder at the lunch crowd lining up at the windows.
“Yeah, they’re coming in nice.”
Kline’s Freeze was so successful, the Klines opened a second restaurant, a drive-in on Linton Hall Road, near the Manassas airport.
“We built in ’69,” Paul said.
“It was November,” his wife added.
He turned to her slightly.
“Do you know the exact date?”
“Of course. Veterans Day, November 11, 1969. Now, when we built it, we didn’t know that IBM was going to move in,” she said. “We moved in right at the same time, and so we made a profit right from day one.”
At the time, some people didn’t think it was such a wise decision.
“Oh, we lived just up the road. It was farmland there all around there,” Paul said. “And I’ll tell you something else. … Some businessmen in Manassas found out that I was going to build two-three miles out of Manassas, and they said ‘shucks, man, you’ll starve! No one will want to come out that far!’ And I said, ‘fine, we’ll starve.’
“But that took off like a rocket. We get a lot of traffic out there.”
Although the drive-in — now run by one of the couple’s sons — emphasizes hot food, both restaurants still are grounded in one thing: ice cream.
Paul walked over to the bank of ice cream machines.
“This here is strawberry. We’ve got strawberry, chocolate and vanilla.”
He rested his hands on the ice cream taps. “You pull here and you get chocolate, here you get vanilla and chocolate swirled together. And here you get strawberry and vanilla swirled together. People like that.”
They also like his milkshakes. They’re something of a novelty nowadays, as they’re made with real milk. And other real ingredients.
“You see that there?” He pointed, lifting up the lids on a series of tins. “That’s what makes this good. That’s frozen strawberries. And this here’s strawberry ice cream.” He handed over the milkshake, smiling like a proud father. “It’s got it, hasn’t it? Yes, sir. You add the strawberries to it, and that tells the story. … I got all these flavors here: strawberry, butterscotch, cherry, that’s pineapple, chocolate. And we can do malts.”
The Klines have been running their business since Lyndon Baines Johnson was president, and are working harder most days than many people 10 years younger do. But Paul is in no hurry to retire.
“I guess I will eventually,” he said. “I’m 75. But I won’t put no time on it. I don’t know when it’ll be.”
Neither Kline has any regrets about having spent more than 30 years selling ice cream to the public.
“Was I ever sorry?” June asked, slipping hot dogs into buns. “No, no!”
“Never for a minute have I been sorry,” Paul said.
“The business has been good to us,” June said, “All our kids have been able to work with us.”
The members of the expansive Kline family tree — including seven children and 18 grandchildren — aren’t the only employees of Kline’s Freeze, although it sometimes seems that way.
“They happen to all be my kin today,” Paul said. “That’s my daughter Lorraine in there. And this here’s her daughter, and she …”
“She’s a great niece,” June interjected.
“Is that how it works? Well, they’re all great,” Paul laughed. He glanced over at the lines forming across the counter. “Now, you can see out here the traffic we get. It’s only noon here.
“We get by,” he said, with quiet understatement. “Sometimes we have six people in here, with a person on the grill,” Paul said, watching his family bustling around the business that bears his name, serving the customers who line up, come rain, or come shine for his food. ‘And we put ’em out. We put ’em out.”
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Hello…I just wanted you to know that I’ve been working at klines for 4 or so yr
s now…and it’s still one of the best places I’ve been to….I only go there for icecream and their half smokes are incredable….just thought you should know…oh and it has new oowners
Comment by nancy brizuela — December 6, 2005 @ 9:25
Thought I’d let you know that Mr. Kline passed away a few weeks ago. His son continues to run the second location. Very nice story on a great family.
Comment by dave — May 5, 2006 @ 16:06
I really enjoyed reading about your Tastee Freez.My daughter lives in Manassas,but I have never been to your place.My husband & I own a Tastee Freez in Brockway Pa. Both of our daughters worked there through high school and college. I have enjoyed every year I’ve been here(35).
I hope to visit your place soon!!
Comment by Wanda Smith — February 27, 2008 @ 19:49