Arctic Blast Shaved Ice cools off residents

WORLAND - Bob and Teresa Harrington have turned names such as Elsa, Dory and Captain America into more than just Disney cartoons and superheroes, they have made them shaved ice flavors.

Bob and Teresa bought Worland's lone shaved ice business in 2014 before the summer started. "This is our third summer," Teresa Harrington said.

"It was actually kind of a funny story, we went to Sally Molina's at Sally's Classic Pizza and had ice cream there one day and she said she was thinking about selling shaved ice because she didn't have time for it anymore. She asked me if I knew anyone interested that would keep it going. I went home immediately to my husband and said we should consider buying it. I said there is a line there all the time and it would be fun and a great business for the kids when they get older. We thought about it for a little while and I went back to Sally and I said we wanted it. I told her we would take it over and keep the business going. We just happened to be there and she told us and I thought hey why don't we grab it! My kids go to shaved ice all time so we thought it would be perfect," Teresa said.

When the Harrington's took over, they changed the name to Arctic Blast Shaved Ice and they don't sell hot dogs anymore, they just strictly sell shaved ice.

Teresa Harrington said their most popular flavors are avatar, tiger's blood, wedding cake, blue raspberry and strawberry. "We have 52 flavors and we can make about 105 different flavor combinations," she said.

"We have a white board in the back and the kids do a flavor of the day, so they will do one of the flavor combinations as flavor of the day. We are fortunate to have an artist that works for us so they always do a fun picture with it. So they make it fun when they do the flavor of the day," Teresa Harrington said.

Some of the flavor names were the original names when they took over the business and some of the names Teresa has taken from Pinterest. "Shaved ice is really big in Hawaii so I have looked at names that they have done in Hawaii and brought them here. Some of the flavors kids just come up with. We have had high school kids and kids from the Youth Learning Center come up with names. The kids will be working and make combinations and think it is good so they make a name for it," she said.

According to Harrington, hotter days aren't necessarily busier because they keep their business hours so consistent that people know that they can go from noon to 9 p.m. "It just stays a nice steady flow," she said.

"Our goal was to keep shaved ice running since it's the only one in Worland. Shaved ice has been a staple in the community for a long time. I know people talk about it being here when they were kids, so we want to keep it in the community. For us it's a good opportunity because we can hire so many kids. We have 13 kids working for us so we just wanted to make sure that it stayed open and stayed in the community," she said.

"We have sponsored T-ball teams, the baseball team to go to the state championships last year in Oregon, we sponsor a demolition derby car once a year, this is our third year sponsoring the demo derby. We held a fundraiser for a little boy last year when we found out he had cancer. We did an end of season big fundraiser for him, those are things we have done for the community," Teresa said.

She said their plans for the future are for Emily and Nicole (their daughters) to be able to work at shaved ice. "We are just going to keep it going the way it is. Recently we bought a trailer so that we can travel and are available at sporting events, weddings, birthday parties and things like that. We just want to make it big and exciting for people," she said.

Arctic Blast Shaved Ice officially opened the first weekend in May for weekends only. They were open daily for summer hours on the last day of school and will stay open until Sept 1.