A yummy sign from the past reappears
A familiar name from the past recently popped up on the front of a tiny building housing the 915 Skate Shop on West Lee Street.
"Something just fell off the building,"' says manager Danny Skell.
It was a slab that extended the length of the building above the entrance.
Once gone, it exposed a long-covered sign that says "Guilford Dairy."
The shoebox of a building housed one of 21 Guilford Dairy Bars, which sold ice cream and milk produced by Guilford Dairy, a cooperative formed by county farmers in 1931.
In 1969, Guilford sold its ice cream bars to Mayberry Ice Cream Co. It kept the Lee Street location, but changed the sign. Presently, only one Mayberry remains in Greensboro, in Summit Shopping Center, occupying a former Guilford Dairy Bar.
The old Lee Street dairy bar may have been Guilford's first. The diary's original processing plant was close by on Lee Street.
Guilford Dairy moved its processing plant in about 1950 to a large new complex in a triangle formed by West Market Street and what's now United Street. A diary bar was opened in front of the plant, but the company kept the bar on Lee Street.
In 1969, Guilford Dairy merged with other area dairy cooperatives to become United Dairies. In 1975, Flav-O-Rich, a dairy out of London, Ky., bought United Dairies. In 2001, Flav-O-Rich closed the West Market plant. It has stood vacant since then.
A for-sale sign advertises the 8.3 acres of prime real estate in a busy part of town. Rumors say the plant will be demolished soon. The sale is being handled by Southern Asset Corp. of Dallas. Brooke Billups of the company said the sale does not include a clause that the building be torn down. That will be left to the buyer to decide. The asking price is $2.2 million.
Skell of the skate shop says he's not old enough to remember the Guilford Dairy Bar, but older people who come into the shop talk of good times and good eats they had there.
Skell said the dairy sign became exposed about six months ago. He's not sure if the skate shop owner plans to cover it. He could let it remain - a memory of a yummy place of long ago.