Paul Guzman, owner and operator of the Bonnie and Clyde Soda Shop in the Stone Soup Emporium in Bristol laughs with customers while taking their order on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2011. (Truth Photo By Delayna Earley)
If you want one last ice cream soda from Bonnie & Clyde’s Soda Shop, you’ll have to hurry.
The shop is closing after business Tuesday, according to owner Paul Guzman.
Bonnie Barrett opened Stone Soup Emporium in November 2010. The former King’s Grocery Store building had antiques and boutique items from a number of vendors.
Guzman opened a soda shop in there April 27, 2011.
“It was going really well,” he said.
He and Barrett were working leasing the former grocery building and were working on getting funding to purchase it. Then Guzman had a heart attack. He survived, but the effort to buy the building didn’t. “We weren’t able to pull together funding to purchase the building,” he said.
The ice cream shop was one of four Elkhart County spots to be named on a list of the state’s best. He was making lunches and hoping to put in a full kitchen and feed more workers coming to Bristol with Utilimaster’s move, he said. The soda shop and Stone Soup Emporium got traffic because of being part of the Heritage Trail and in the Elkhart County Convention and Visitors Bureau publicity, he said.
But Bristol is a small town. “It’s not St. Joe, Mich. It’s not downtown Shipshewana during peak season,” he said.
He’s removing the soda fountain and hopes to reopen elsewhere. The hours for the last day Tuesday will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Stone Soup Emporium will likely be open through Sunday. Hours the remaining days will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except Sunday when it would open at noon.
