Well, if you’ve had the chance to see Pixar’s latest, “Up” then you may have found the reference to local Oakland ice cream favorite, Fentons Creamery. When it comes to ice cream, it has been a treat for many people for a long time. Yet, things aren’t all sweetness and good times there...

Thanks to Robert Gammon of the East Bay Express News for a different look at the operation and it’s ownership from his story, “Fire and Ice Cream”. Here’s a taste:

“At first blush, Gregory Scott Whidden, a 43-year-old Montclair resident with dark curly hair and a cherubic face, comes across as a calm, fun-loving guy who gets his kicks serving ice cream to children and seniors. Whidden seems a perfect fit as the owner of a local business with an American-as-apple-pie reputation. He is an unabashed Oakland booster who has helped raise money for Children's Hospital and crafted a fifty-foot-long sundae for Children's Fairyland. But former employees, legal opponents, business acquaintances, and several neighbors say Whidden's aw-shucks-I'm-just-an-ice-cream-maker persona is nothing but a front.

"He's reminiscent of Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons," said Leila Moncharsh, an Oakland attorney who represents Fentons' neighbors in the Piedmont Avenue area. "On the surface, he's 'Hey, kids, here's your ice cream.' But as soon as you look into his background, you find something totally different."

Fentons has another side too. On its face, the ice-cream parlor is an East Bay institution, a beloved remnant of a bygone era. But it was spiraling downward long before the fire. Gone were the longtime ice-cream makers who linked Fentons to its past. Gone were the veteran waitresses who called their customers "hon" as they served up crab sandwiches. Gone were most of the people who lived for Fentons, replaced by a seemingly endless string of people who merely worked there.

The changes began almost immediately after Whidden and Richmond attorney C. Jay Hollander purchased Fentons in 1987 and attempted to break its union. They closed the shop, laid off the employees, and forced them to reapply for their jobs, according to newspaper accounts and former waitress and manager Cynthia Van der Heyden, who had worked for Fentons for more than twenty years. Whidden and Hollander sued the union when employees picketed his shop. (Whidden said they went on strike; union members said they were locked out.) The employees eventually returned to work and later disbanded the union after Whidden promised better health benefits. But it was more than half a decade before Whidden made the promised improvements, Van der Heyden and two former colleagues said.

Fentons hasn't really been "Fentons" since the 1950s, when the Fenton family sold the business it started in the 1890s. Whidden has nonetheless capitalized on their story, featuring it on his restaurant menus and company Web site. In reality, he and his partner have no connection to the family. The two bought the ice-cream parlor from a group called Wallner and Associates of San Diego, which had purchased the business a few years earlier from food and prescription drug conglomerate Foremost-McKesson.”

You can read the full (and very interesting) story here.