By Emily Cross
Rount Table reporter

Many people in Middletown are wondering what happened to Middletown’s beloved Jaley’s. Want the complete story? Keep reading.

Jaley’s Ice Cream Parlor and Grill opened in 2007. Being new to everyone, it became very popular. The shop had a variety of smoothies, shakes, Sundays, ice cream, Italian ice, and the grill.

Now it’s gone, recently close, and many of its loyal customers are disappointed.

I decided to interview Haley Darr, the daughter of owners Mr. Darr and Mrs. Darr. Haley had worked at this family-owned business since it opened. I asked her a series of questions about Jaley’s and what happened to it.

Haley said that the reason that they closed was because, “We never had family time, so we decided to change that. We wanted to be a family again.”

She also said, “My parents were rarely home because they were working to keep Jaleys on its feet. My parents were ready for that to change.”

Don’t you think that the winter and fall season would hurt Jaleys moneywise? The cold might make ice cream less-appealing, but no, here what Haley said: “Since we had opened the grill, fall and winter season didn’t affect us much at all. The ice cream business was slow, of course, but people still continued to come for lunch and dinner.”

The grill was really a good idea for Jaleys, for those non-ice cream lovers, there were other options. It was very disappointing to Middletown residents, but did Haley feel differently?

Haley doesn’t seem upset about Jaley’s closing too much.“I like that my parents are home,” she said. “I love the family time we have now.”

I asked Haley, as a teenager, how it affected her social life with friends.

“It didn’t affect my social life at all,” she said. “Of course I had to miss the occasional party or football game because of work, but that applies to most teenagers.”

I thought that it must have taken some time to decide what to do with the business; I wondered if they waited a while to see what was going to happen to the business. Haley said, “We decided two weeks before Jaley’s actually closed.”

The final question I asked her is if it was hard to hide the fact that Jaley’s was closing to her close friends.

“It wasn’t difficult at all,” she said. “My friends and I don’t discuss Jaley’s very much unless we wanted to go there for lunch or something. Since it never came up in any of our conversations, I never had to worry about it.”

Haley said that Jaley’s doesn’t plan on opening again. Maybe someone else will end up renting the building and putting another ce cream shop there.