“There are 80 people in front of us,” says Neil, my boyfriend. “I just counted.”
I’m too busy snapping a photo of the winding line to take a census, so I’m glad that he’s on top of it. We’ve just pulled into Memphis’s Berclair neighborhood, a 15-minute drive from downtown, to get a snack off the beaten path at a spot recommended by a Tennessee-born friend. It turns out, we’d walked into a Norman Rockwell painting: a line of mostly kids and teens snaking back from a bubble-gum-pink building — a former gas station — topped by a swirling sculpture of soft serve. Welcome to Jerry’s Sno Cones.
It’s a sweet serving of Americana, indeed: Chatting and laughing on a warm spring afternoon, parents discuss the soccer game they’ve just come from and who scored what goal. A girl shrieks at an enormous, shiny bumblebee and then breaks into a chorus of “I’m bringing home a baby bumblebee.” Her friends join in. A foursome of teens breaks into some kind of hand-clapping game as pimply guys cruise by in their cars, scoping out the lot.
Picture the Alamo Freeze from “Friday Night Lights,” the Max from “Saved by the Bell,” the Peach Pit from “Beverly Hills 90210,” add shaved ice, radioactively bright syrup and a line that borders on the next Zip code, and you’ve got Jerry’s.
Neil quickly does some research on his phone, looking at Yelp and Facebook for tips on which of the 70-plus flavors to order (Jerry’s doesn’t have a website). Oddly enough, he’s the only one in the entire line who’s using his cell. Everyone else is, gasp, talking to one another.