How the Midwest Became the Custard Capital of the World

Denny Moore, the 65-year-old co-owner of Scooter’s Frozen Custard in Chicago, vividly recalls annual childhood sojourns out to Des Plaines to visit his grandparents each summer. “We’d go into town, get ice cream cones, and sit on a bench in a train station and watch the trains go by,” says Moore. “Big, black locomotives with black smoke coming out of the chimney. It was like the end of the world when we went by, it was so loud and crazy. It’s my single favorite memory with my grandfather.”

Now, Moore says that he’s “in the memory business” himself. He’s convinced that everyone remembers their first sample of custard. He has a strong sense memory of his own. “I can’t tell you for sure what the name of the shop was, but I can visualize it,” he says. “I can taste it.”