The Paces think their Astro popsicle bars are so good, they posted a warning sign on the wall of the family's fast-food restaurant:
"Our Astros are made fresh every day, but when they are taken home they will freezer burn easily. A plastic, air-tight bag will help, but they still will not keep very long - especially if your husband or children are around," cautions the sign.Pace's Dairy Ann, 1180 S. 500 West, Bountiful, is a family owned and operated fast-food restaurant with a house speciality: Astro Bars. The popsicles come in four flavors - peach, lime, cherry and grape, and according to customers, they are the best popsicles around.
"No one has anything like them," said Bountiful resident Lee Grober, 41, who stopped by to pick up two-dozen bars. "They have a lot more flavor than the popsicles you buy at the grocery store. When we have a family picnic, we always volunteer to bring the dessert - Astro Bars. When the relatives from Ogden come down, they always buy a stock to take back with them.
"We like the good quality and the reasonable price," Groberg said. "You can't go wrong with any flavor; they're all good."
Shane Bawden, 13, agrees.
"They've got a lot more flavor than the others do," Bawden said. "I come here a lot just to get Astros."
"I like Astro Bars because they taste so good," said 6-year-old Casey Nielson, of Woods Cross.
Gordon Pace launched the family's first store, a Dairy Queen, on Main Street in 1949. Over the years, the family added a second store and five delivery trucks to the business. Then came the freeway.
"Eighty percent to 90 percent of our business disappeared overnight," said Ralph Pace Sr., who now owns and manages Pace's Dairy Ann. "We'd have lost the whole business if we didn't have the ice-cream trucks."
The family decided to sell a store and refocus its business efforts. They also decided to drop the Dairy Queen franchise.
"We would have had to charge customers more," Pace explained. "I believe in offering people a good quality product at a fair price. I'm not out to make a fortune."
Pace's Astro Bars cost 25 cents if you buy them separately or $2.05 a dozen.
"Some people think we're millionaires because we're always busy," Pace said. "But we have a lot of overhead and costs, too. We use real sugar in our bars. We put real flavor in there, and you can taste it - that's why we're still in business."
In fact, business is booming.
"We're getting so busy, we can't function out of this store anymore," Pace said. "It was just a few years ago we turned the machines off during the winter, but now we keep them busy all year round. We make our Astro Bars fresh each day."
Pace's Dairy Ann sells between 5,000 to 6,000 Astro Bars a day during the summer, said Ralph Pace Jr.
"I was talking to one of the firms which supply ice-cream equipment when the guy asked me how many stores we had," the younger Pace said. "I told him one. He asked how many outlets we had. I told him one - ours. He just couldn't believe we were doing such a large volume out of one store. He said it was equal to the volume of 50 grocery stores."
There is no strict recipe for making Pace's Astro Bars.
"We measure out the acid, but the flavorings and sugar are added until I think it tastes just right," the elder Pace said. "Everything is done by hand. It's like driving a Model A or a Model T Ford. We mix the water, sugar, flavorings, acids, etc., in a bucket, pour the mixture into the molds and put the molds into a brine water-bath to freeze, which takes about 18 to 20 minutes.
"There are no preservatives or stabilizers in our Astro Bars, so the shelf life is short once you take them home."
Although cherry used to be the favorite flavor, peach is now the front-runner.
"About six or seven years ago, a salesman came in and tried to get us to use the peach flavor in a drink," the junior Pace said. "He left some samples, so I made a punch slush. I tinkered with the formula until it tasted good. Then I made a dozen popsicles. Dad tasted one of them. Next day, one-fourth of all the Astros were peach-flavored. Within a month, the peach sold as many as the cherry. Within three months, it outsold the cherry.
"I've tried about 15 flavors but only found four that worked. Two flavors we're always getting asked for are banana and root beer, but I can't get them to taste any better than the popsicles you get in the store, so we don't make them."
Pace's Dairy Ann is truly a family store. After dropping the Dairy Queen franchise, the Pace family renamed the store after the founder's wife whose middle name is Ann, and all of the Pace children and grandchildren have worked at the fast-food restaurant.