The Ice House, a seasonal restaurant located in Rye, New Hampshire, closed for good on October 12. The restaurant, owned by the Malinoski family, has been running for 45 years since its opening in 1980.

“My parents have decided to retire, and my husband and I are going to move on to our next adventure,” says Meg Bishop, the owner’s daughter and Ice House manager. She stated that because it takes at least four people to run the Ice House, she and her husband are stepping away, “mainly because we don’t have anybody else behind us to help run it.”

Bishop’s parents, Keith and Kathy Malinowski, bought the Ice House from the Bartlett family in 1980 with very little restaurant experience. The building was made of wood from trees that had fallen in a hurricane, and the scoop room was a refitted pilot’s room from an old tugboat. They redid the restaurant in 2002, adding indoor bathrooms and a waiting room.

“I’m going to miss working for the Ice House,” says Molly Malinowski, granddaughter of Keith and Kathy and sophomore at Portsmouth High school., “It’s sad that this little community is going away forever.”

The Ice House has been in the family since Bishop was five, and she first started getting a paycheck when she was twelve. 

“I can’t remember a time before it,” Bishop jokes. “The Ice House has been my entire life.”

The thing that the owners cherish most about the Ice House is the community. Bishop says that one of the saddest things about the closing is not getting to be able to see all the customers that have come to the Ice House over and over again.

Meg Martin, a Spanish teacher at Portsmouth High School who has worked at the Ice House for thirty-two years, agrees with her. 

“Losing the community, losing the connections…not seeing our regulars,” Martin said when asked what the saddest part about the closing was.

The customers are not the only community that the Ice House is losing. They are losing the staff. Both Martin and Bishop said that the staff is like one giant family, and that they will never be able to duplicate the community that was built at the Ice House.

A lot of staff members who have long since moved on from the Ice House came back to work one last shift on the day it closed. Martin says that they even had staff members from Canada come down to work on the last day. “We really are a tight knit family,” Martinshe says.

While the Ice House is closing, the staff does plan to stay in touch. “They are part of our family forever,” Bishop says. 

The Ice House was put on the market for 1.5 million U.S. dollars.