Found: A sweet treat destination

By Colleen Lowery

Pastel people dance and read and melt along the walls without a care. Their multicolored bodies even cover full picnic tables. Where in the world does this happen?

Gannon’s Isle Ice Cream, Syracuse’s family owned and operated homemade ice cream store. For 31 years, Eileen Gannon and her brother John have been creating smiles at the city’s sweet treat destination.

It’s important to Gannon’s to buy their ingredients locally. Their base mix comes from Byrne Dairy. The ingredients are combined and when it comes out as soft ice cream, they deep-freeze it for 40 hours to produce the infamous hard ice cream. It’s a careful process but Gannon says it’s worth it.

“If you do it right, you have a great product,” she said.

Local artist J.P. Crangle is responsible for the intricately detailed dancing characters that embody the summer flavors.

“He does neat stuff,” Gannon said. “We have a mural on the wall … I look at it every day … it’s been there for 20-odd years … I still see something I’ve never seen in it before.”

“It’s our look, it’s part of our success,” she said.