The store fronts on the iconic Franklin Street in Chapel Hill are a continually evolving thing. Typically you can date when you went to school simply by naming some long-departed businesses that used to dot the stretch from Church Street and Henderson Street—aka the two block stretch where Franklin intersects with Columbia Street.
You could say Ye Olde Waffle Shope, Pepper’s Pizza, Waffle House, Krispy Kreme, Hector’s Grille, Linda’s, and people will be able to tell you when you walked that stretch.
Still, for all the change that has brought about new businesses, some long time businesses are still there. You can still sit inside the Varsity theater for today’s new release, have breakfast at the Carolina Coffee Shop, get a meal at Top of the Hill, or visit Cosmic Cantina’s new location.
One of those business is also the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream shop located at 102 West Franklin Street.
The actual ice cream made by the iconic duo has long been sold to Unilever, but the ice cream shops are basically like any other franchise you can visit—the shop themselves are independently owner and operated, then get their supplies from Ben & Jerry’s to sell. It’s been locally owned for years now, and on Sunday, we found out who the new local owner of the shop is:
Yes, Seth Trimble announced that he had taken over the ownership of this iconic shop, cementing him further in Chapel Hill in a way that many other Carolina Basketball players haven’t before.
The person handing the scoop over to Trimble is the prior owner of the shop, Antonio McBroom. As he says in the video, McBroom started as a scooper at the shop back in 2002 and since then rose to be the CEO of the only muti-unit black franchise for Ben and Jerry’s known as Primo Partners. He’s a 2008 UNC Graduate, and it’s pretty clear that the store held a special pace in his heart. He wasn’t going to let this shop go to just anyone—and handing it off to a current UNC player who in this age of the transfer portal and NIL decided to stay on the team seems like the best fit.
The ownership is effective now, so if you’re walking up and down the street today and other football game days grabbing a scoop, look at the wall with the Seth Trimble jersey and smile knowing that a UNC Basketball player is investing in keeping at least a part of himself right here in Chapel Hill.
