The name on Charlie Moore’s ice cream stand on Route 202 in Peterborough might be his, but Charlie’s Olde Tyme Creamery is actually named after his father.
His father Charles Moore owned an ice cream shop in Amherst. It was at that ice cream shop that Moore’s father was murdered in 1989 after attempting to diffuse a situation between a female teenage employee and her boyfriend.
“My father wouldn’t get out of the way,” Moore said.
Moore never scooped a cone or made a sundae at his father’s shop, but some of his earliest memories with his dad are tied to going out for ice cream in the summer.
“We want to build those lasting memories for the customers,” Moore said.
It was almost 22 years to the day of his father’s death – and a few days before his birthday – that Moore opened up his shop on a piece of land that he rented from SDE. He never envisioned opening an ice cream stand, but at that time Moore was trying to decide his next step. After getting out of the Coast Guard, Moore spent his entire adult life as a contractor, remodeling, roofing, painting, installing dry wall – just about anything that came with constructing a house or building.
“I didn’t want to be on a roof when I was 70,” Moore said. “So I said what can I do that is fun.”
He came up with two options: open an ice cream stand or a motorcycle shop. Building motorcycles has been a hobby of his since he was 16, but in the end Moore decided to keep that as his hobby.
“With a motorcycle shop, not everyone is happy when they get that bill,” he said. “But everyone’s happy when they get ice cream and it puts smiles on people’s faces.”
Once Moore decided he wanted to open an ice cream stand, it came down to finding the right location. The parcel off Route 202 in front of SDE was perfect, but it took a couple calls to the realtor to get enter into a rental agreement.
Moore opened the shop in 2011 after building it himself, and has slowly made it into a must-stop for those seeking a cool refreshment traveling from Peterborough to Jaffrey.
“It was pretty much just me for the first few years,” Moore said. “There wasn’t a lot of money in the beginning.”
He gets the majority of his ice cream from Connolly Brothers Dairy Farm, although he hopes to one day be able to make some of his own. That would fall under Moore’s grand ideas for the property, as he would like to expand the size of the operation. He also thinks it would be a great spot for a Saturday farmer’s market, considering Peterborough’s other two markets are during the week.
“My first thought was this and now grow it a little bit,” Moore said.
In addition to the hard ice cream, Moore offers soft serve, as well as food like hot dogs, smoked pulled pork, ribs and on Fridays during the summer, lobster rolls that he helps a friend collect from traps on Thursdays. “It’s the freshest lobster anywhere around here,” Moore said.
Moore opens the stand in April, whenever the weather is nice enough for people to think ice cream, and stays open through October. He’s busy during the summer months, but he still tries to finds time to work on motorcycles – he’s rebuilding a 1941 Harley trike that he will use for catering jobs. He has six motorcycles at home that are in different stages of rebuild and also helps friends.
“I had my first mini bike when I was 6 years old,” Moore said. “And my interest just took off from there.”
One thing that Moore is quite proud of is his disaster relief work. He first started volunteering with 8 Days of Hope, but flying over the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on his way back from a trip to Costa Rica he knew he needed to do even more. So he founded Team Acts 20:35 and has criss-crossed the country over the last handful of years to places that have needed help the most. He’s gone to Mississippi after floods and tornadoes, hurricanes in Florida, Vermont and the Carolinas, and been to Ohio, Iowa, Texas and Alabama. Using his expertise in construction and a large network of friends, Moore will coordinate an effort to go after the major relief work is done, typically six months to a year after the event and when people are still struggling.
“We all believe God has a purpose and uses us to go out and help,” Moore said.
People will fly in from all over the country, while Moore’s nonprofit organization takes care of the food and lodging to take away some of the financial burden of those looking to lend a helping hand. They’ve replaced roofs, cleaned up debris and replaced dry wall. In December, they went to Panama City and “did nothing but cook food for two weeks.”
“Whatever needs to be done,” Moore said. “It’s pretty amazing how it all comes together.”
The trips for the volunteers are for eight days, but Moore usually goes a week or two ahead of time and stays a week after. Right now, Moore keeps the trips to withing the U.S., but would like to incorporate mission trips to other countries.
In the midst of opening Charlie’s Olde Tyme Creamery, Moore was elected as a state representative for Cheshire Count District 7 and served two years.
During his time in the Coast Guard, Moore was a boatswain’s mate and worked on the Mississippi River and on a small boat that patrolled the area from Gloucester, Massachusetts to Portsmouth. He spent six years in the service, but during that time his father was killed and he wasn’t ready to commit to a career in the military.
He grew up in Mason and has called the Monadnock region home for most of his life, but also branched out in his younger days, living in Florida, Arizona, Kentucky and Tennessee.
“Six months here, a few months there,” Moore said.
He got married about a year and a half ago to his wife Mariela and the two live in Jaffrey, just a short commute to the ice cream stand.
Moore knew owning an ice cream stand would be a lot of fun, and knows why his father opened one all those years ago. And it’s one of those connections he can make to his dad, every time he looks at the sign out front.