As the bustling downtown Brownwood area continues to expand, another new business – one unique to the city – is preparing to join the scene. 

Over the Rainbow Ice Cream, which will be located at 201 Fisk next to Twisted Axes, is hoping to open its doors to the community before summer ends.

The McDermed family – Julie, her husband Justin, son Rowan and daughter Brynlee – will be in charge of the operation, with hopes of opening by Aug. 1. Hours upon opening will be 1 to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.

“I’ve always loved ice cream, hand scooped, good ice cream,” Julie McDermed said. “We’re from Kansas and we’ve been in Texas for 16 years. My husband was presenting the idea of coming to Brownwood about nine years ago. I asked if there was a Target and a good ice cream shop, and he said ‘no and no’. For nine years we’ve been without a good ice cream shop and I finally was like, ‘why aren’t we doing it?’ I’m an entrepreneur at heart, I know I’m supposed to own my business, so we went for it.

The current plan for Over the Rainbow is to provide a rotation of 12 flavors of ice cream.

“Right now my cabinet can do 12 flavors,” McDermed said. “What we’re planning on doing is probably having six to eight permanent flavors that are always in place. Since everything is going to be made here in house, we’ll have a lot of opportunities to play with flavors and see what people like. We’ll also have sherbets and dairy free options as well. We’ll always have a little bit of variety including the traditional flavors everybody wants.”

Over the Rainbow will also offer cookies and brownies as those will be included in their made from scratch ice cream flavors.

“Everything will be made in house, the cookie mix-ins, everything,” McDermed said. “It’s all going to be scratch made, our version of cookies. It’s very important to me to be proud of what I serve and to know where the ingredients come from and what they are, so outsourcing buckets of ice cream or mix-ins isn’t an option. We’re hoping to get a lot of local sourcing, pecans from San Saba, local peaches whenever they are in season, everything local we can as much as we can.”

As for choosing the Fisk Avenue location for their business, McDermed said, “There’s something about that street right there. Once I saw the ‘for rent’ sign I didn’t want to look anywhere else. That is the spot and where we’re supposed to be. The growth is exciting and there’s always something going on. It’s great for us as adults but there’s not much for families, so it would be so awesome to be right there and have something for the family all the time.

“The building owner is giving a face lift to the Baker Street side of the building, adding a door, so we’ll have great visibility and access from the Baker side also.”