Stroh's Brewery/Ice Cream

[detroitbob66]

At the Stroh's building on Gratiot by Brewery Park, do they still make Stroh's Ice Cream here, or is it all abandoned property? Its obviously well secured, so just wondering if Stroh's Ice Cream is still being made here? Thanks team...AGAIN!!!! LOL

[Gsgeorge]

My family ran the 1000 Maple factory when Melody Farms [[a Detroit company founded by my great grandfather in 1955) purchased Stroh's Ice Cream in the '90s. When Dean Foods, a mega-dairy out of TX, bought out Stroh's/Melody in '03 [[swim with the sharks or get eaten by them), they said they would keep the factory open and preserve the roughly 75 jobs for the Detroiters that worked there. Quietly and slowly, the factory operations were scaled back from a production facility to storage/distribution, and was eventually closed. Stroh's ice cream is now made in Illinois, but Melody Farms ice cream can still be found in the city limits. A sad thing that happened overall but the sign out front still is as colorful as I remember... it says "two Detroit family traditions come together".

[Gsgeorge]

Part of the 1000 Maple complex contains some buildings left over the old Goebel's Brewing, an early competitor of Stroh's.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/9176
http://www.shorpy.com/node/9121

Busy Bee Hardware owns a vacant building in the Gratiot/Maple/Rivard district that was also part of the Brewery. It can be most obviously identified by the fort-like crenelations along its roofline.

[DetroitZack]

Thanks for the info, Gsgeorge. And what a building that was at 1000 Maple!

[detroitbob66]

Thanks for the insight GSGeorge....you must be proud still......what up Zack....get at me this weekend, how bout saturday or sunday? LOL