A Route 9 Landmark, Since 1947

Head north on Route 9 toward Lake George and there's a rooster you can't miss — the hand-painted mascot that has watched over Martha's Dandee Creme in Queensbury for the better part of a century. Since 1947, Martha's has been the stop that marks the start of summer for generations of Upstate New York families. Cones after the ball game, sundaes on the way home from the lake, a first job scooping behind the window. It became part of people's memories without ever seeming to try.

The stand opened in 1947, founded by Martha Schoelermann and Carlton Freiberger — and it was Martha's first name that gave the place the identity it still carries today. For more than three decades they built it into a Queensbury fixture: a roadside creamery that treated a soft serve cone as something worth doing right. By the time they stepped back, Martha's wasn't just an ice cream stand. It was a landmark.

In 1982, Roger and Lena LaFontaine took the reins. As owner-operators, they poured nearly two decades into the business — growing the menu, growing the crowds, and turning a beloved local stop into a genuine Adirondack-gateway destination. Under the LaFontaines, Martha's reputation traveled far beyond Queensbury.

That chapter also marked the beginning of Martha's relationship with Taylor. As the LaFontaines took over, Taylor of Albany (which later became Taylor Upstate) worked alongside them to demonstrate what purpose-built Taylor equipment could deliver — a more consistent cone and greater production capacity than the machines the stand had run before. It proved itself on the busiest days, and it began a partnership that still stands more than forty years later.

That reputation caught the eye of a much larger neighbor. In 1999, Six Flags — owner of The Great Escape, the amusement park just up the road — purchased Martha's and ran it for the next decade. It was an unusual chapter for a family creamery: a roadside institution operating under one of the biggest names in entertainment. But the ice cream kept flowing, and the rooster kept watch.

Then, in 2009, Martha's came home. Dennis LaFontaine — Roger and Lena's son — and his wife Beth bought the business back, returning it to the family that had shaped its best years. Today their children are stepping into the lead, carrying a legacy that spans generations and nearly eight decades on the same stretch of Route 9.

Serving crowds that size takes serious equipment. Martha's runs a fleet of a dozen Taylor C712 soft serve freezers to keep every window moving on a busy summer night. And beyond the cones, the shop has built a following all its own around the Dandee Creme Sandwich, its signature packaged ice cream sandwich sold from freezers and its own truck. From a single roadside stand in 1947 to a Route 9 institution today, Martha's has kept one thing constant: do the simple things well, and do them for everyone.