Cammie’s Old Dutch Ice Cream Shoppe, Fairhope

Cammie’s Old Dutch Ice Cream Shoppe keeps a Fairhope outpost at 9555 Highway 24, one of three locations tied to a business that traces its recipes back more than five decades. The Fairhope shop carries the same family formula as its Mobile-area counterparts, scooped from a rotating lineup of flavors that runs well past the standard chocolate-vanilla-strawberry trio most ice cream counters stop at.

The business began in 1969, when Edwin Widemire started Old Dutch using his father’s ice cream recipes as the foundation for the shop. Those recipes stayed in use through a change in ownership: Cammie Wayne bought the business in 1998, having already worked at Old Dutch as her first job since age sixteen, which means the current owner learned the shop from the counter up rather than buying in as an outsider.

In 2011, Cammie and her husband Larry took the operation a step further by beginning to manufacture the ice cream on-site rather than sourcing it from an outside supplier. That shift makes Old Dutch the only ice cream manufacturer and wholesaler based in Mobile, Alabama, a distinction that also explains why the Fairhope shop’s ice cream is made from the same in-house batches rather than a distributor’s product line.

The flavor list runs to 47 varieties across the full rotation, though not every flavor is in the case on any given day. Vanilla-based options include Mexican vanilla, cookies and cream, Cookie Monster, brownie delight, cherry vanilla, cookie dough, caramel swirl, birthday cake, red velvet, biscotti, cotton candy, and tye dye. Chocolate drinkers have chocolate, chocolate chocolate chip, rocky road, chocolate almond, chocolate peanut butter, bear claw, and a chocolate cookies and cream option to choose from.

Fruit and nut flavors round out the everyday list with strawberry, strawberry cheesecake, blueberry cheesecake, peach, blueberry, rum raisin, butter pecan, creole praline, black walnut, pistachio almond, and lemon custard. Seasonal and specialty flavors rotate through as well, including peppermint, pumpkin spice, eggnog, apple spice, prickly pear, and moosetracks, along with nondairy sorbets for customers avoiding dairy altogether. The creole praline and black walnut flavors in particular reflect the shop’s Gulf Coast roots more than a generic ice cream parlor menu would.

Cakes and brownies used inside the ice cream, in flavors like brownie delight and cookie dough, are baked in-house rather than bought pre-made, which is a small detail but one that lines up with the shop’s broader approach of keeping production close to home. Combined with the on-site manufacturing that started in 2011, it means most of what ends up in a Fairhope customer’s cup or cone was made by the same company from the ground up.

Hours at the Fairhope location run Tuesday through Thursday from noon to 8 p.m., stretch a bit later on Friday and Saturday to noon through 9 p.m., and shift earlier on Sunday to 1 p.m. through 8 p.m. The shop is closed on Monday. That schedule fits a summer-town rhythm, with the shop open through the bulk of the afternoon and evening on the days families are most likely to be out along Highway 24 looking for a stop after dinner or a break from the heat.

For a Fairhope visitor choosing between the three Old Dutch locations, the draw of the Highway 24 shop is largely convenience paired with the same family recipe base that has carried the business since 1969. More than five decades after Edwin Widemire first used his father’s recipes to start the company, and well over a decade after Cammie and Larry brought manufacturing in-house, the shop still runs on the same basic idea: scratch-made ice cream, a wide flavor rotation, and a menu that changes just often enough to keep regulars coming back to see what is new in the case.