Stoneham Patch Conversations: History Lessons Under the Bronze Dairy Dome

If you’ve driven down Main Street within the last 33 years, odds are you’ve seen a big gold dome on top of an ice cream shop. Dairy Dome is Stoneham landmark if there ever was one.

Diane Mayo and her husband, Tom love serving up ice cream, selling Christmas trees and serving gourmet Italian food in town.

Diane took time to talk with Stoneham Patch about ice cream, deli meats and the gold dome.

SP: How long have you been in Stoneham?

DM: We’ve been here 33 years. My husband taught in Stoneham for 34 years as a full time teach but he decided to do something else. We had children at the time and we decided to try something else. He wanted to open an ice cream shop because his Uncle used to own Sunny Hurst Dairy.

SP: Where was that?

DM: Here in Stoneham, originally. They used to bottle the milk there. There were 13 convenient stores that were called Sunny Hurst. They were the convenient stores that went along with the business. So the family was in the dairy business and I think that’s what brought it to his mind.

SP: What kind of ice cream would you sell?

DM: First we served soft served and then three years later we started making our own hard ice cream.

SP: And then you expanded to a bigger menu?

DM: Well, we only expanded into the food menu in 2007. Just within the last 6 years, so we were ice cream only for the first 27 years. And that’s all we really sold.

SP: And that was sustainable during the winter?

DM: No, we would close two months out of the year and open in March. We also sold Christmas Trees in the lot out front. We still do.

SP: No kidding?

DM: Oh yeah. If you drive by here at Christmas, it looks like a forest. The sleeves are already in the ground, we just roll out the chain link fences. We were open all year last year. We’re trying to get the word out about our food now. We have really, really good food here.

SP: What is your specialty here?

DM: We have a lot of Italian food which we make here in house. We have Sicillian Pizza, round pizzas, lots of pasta dishes too. They’re a little bit more high end than a pizza shop. We’re not a pizza shop or a sub shop. We’re more of a gourmet type shop. We have a Boar’s Head menu for deli sandwiches. But we don’t do frozen cutlets or anything like that. Everything we make is made in house with fresh chicken, home made meatballs, home made soups and we’ve always made our own ice cream. But on the food side, we pretty much make everything and everything is made to orders, so nothing is sitting around waiting to go.

SP: So what is the story with the gold dome?

DM: These buildings were built in the 1920’s. There are only four in existence that were built around here. One was on Comm. Ave. in Boston, I don’t know if it’s still there. The three that are still around are mine, one in Malden that’s a pizza place, and there’s one in Woburn. Best Gas. Beacon Oil built them. That’s the original copper dome.

SP: It’s pretty hard to miss.

DM: Oh, it’s impossible to miss. We’re very pleased with what we do.