Mister Softee is set to open its fifth Long Island storefront in Coram on September 4, bringing 44 flavors of hard-serve and soft-serve ice cream to the former Milky Ways Ice Cream & Cereal Bar space at 2229 Route 112, Unit F, in Pond Plaza. The shop is operated by siblings Antonio and John Guler, who are expanding their footprint on Long Island after opening their first brick-and-mortar Mister Softee in Center Moriches last year.
According to Newsday, the Coram shop will be twice the size of the siblings' Center Moriches location and will carry 40 hard-serve flavors, including peanut butter pie and cappuccino crunch, alongside four soft-serve options: vanilla, chocolate, pineapple, and mango. The Gulers bought another Mister Softee truck and route in Coram in April, and John Guler told the outlet that a brick-and-mortar store suited the franchisees, so they reached an agreement with the landlord to take over the space.
A Family Legacy Behind the Counter
The Coram opening carries personal weight for the Guler siblings. Their grandfather, Giovanni DiGristina, had been a Mister Softee franchisee since 1968 and retired in 2016, after which Antonio and John took over his route in 2017. DiGristina died earlier this year, and John Guler said the siblings are trying to keep his name alive through the Coram store, per the same Newsday report.
“Customers will receive the same Mister Softee experience they remember while gaining a year-round store,” John Guler said, according to Newsday. The siblings expanded from the Shirley and Mastic Beach area into Moriches in 2020 before opening their Center Moriches storefront at 252 Montauk Highway in September 2025, a project that reportedly followed roughly three years of negotiations to secure that property.
Long Island's Soft-Serve Boom
The Coram location is the latest sign of Mister Softee's rapid shift from seasonal trucks to year-round storefronts across Suffolk County. The brand's other Long Island outposts sit in East Islip, Miller Place, and Oakdale — the East Islip shop became the chain's very first local storefront when it opened at 195 Carleton Ave. in Hoodline's coverage of that debut in the former Pam's Ice Cream Shoppe.
The Oakdale store, run by longtime truck franchisee Selahattin “Selo” Artas, opened this summer as the chain's fourth Long Island brick-and-mortar shop, following plans announced in December for a Miller Place location in the Aliano Shopping Center on Route 25A, operated by truck franchisees Steven and Andrew Zoly. That expansion pace tracks with broader industry pressure on mobile vendors: Mister Softee now runs about 625 trucks across 18 states, down from more than 2,000 trucks in 38 states at its 1960s peak, as fuel costs, competition, and extreme heat push the 70-year-old company, founded in Philadelphia in 1956 and headquartered in Runnemede, New Jersey, toward permanent locations.
What's on the Menu, and When to Go
Unlike traditional Mister Softee trucks, the new storefronts have room to expand well beyond soft-serve staples, with some locations adding items like ice cream burgers, crepes, and bubble waffle cones to draw in walk-in customers year-round. The Coram shop's 44-flavor lineup doubles the floor space of the Gulers' Center Moriches store, which itself featured a retro truck-inspired interior and a partnership with Queens-based Lemon Ice King of Corona for Italian ice.
The Coram space has its own local history: it previously housed Milky Ways Ice Cream & Cereal Bar, a cereal-and-ice-cream mashup spot that opened there in 2019 before relocating its main operations to Port Jefferson. Once open, the new Mister Softee will run 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays.
