Ted Drewes Jr., icon of beloved St. Louis frozen custard stand, dies at 96 (2024)

Ted Drewes Jr. didn’t found the frozen custard business that bears his name. For generations of St. Louisans, however, his face and eager declaration that his custard “really is good, guys — and gals” were as synonymous with summer as Cardinals baseball and fireworks at the Gateway Arch.

Drewes died Aug. 26, his family confirmed. He was 96.

“Few people have played as big and sweet a role in shaping the identity of St. Louis as Ted Drewes Jr.,” said Mayor Tishaura O. Jones in a statement. “I’m sure many St. Louisans have their own delicious and happy memories tied to his famous frozen custard. Chocolate chip concretes were my biggest cravings when I was pregnant with my son, Aden, and I still crave them during spring and summer nights.

“Although I never met Ted personally, I’m certain that St. Louisans share a sense of pride that we are the home of Ted Drewes. His family, friends, and all who knew and loved him are in my thoughts and my prayers.”

Alderman Tom Oldenburg, of St. Louis Hills, remembered Drewes as a sweet, jovial man who was proud of what he had accomplished.

“He built an iconic brand and an iconic product that rivals ice cream-slash-custard throughout the world, and he will be sorely missed,” Oldenburg said.

At an event a few years ago celebrating the stand’s 90th anniversary, Oldenburg accidentally referred to the frozen treat as ice cream in front of Drewes.

“But he was quick to remind me it was custard,” Oldenburg said.

Theodore Raymond Drewes Jr. was born Feb. 17, 1928.

Decades before Drewes turned a concrete upside-down to prove his frozen custard’s thickness, he was introduced to St. Louis as a potential tennis star. An August 1945 article in the St. Louis Star and Times reported that the teenage Drewes — already a crack rifleman, champion speed roller-skater and table-tennis ace — was working on his tennis game under the guidance of his father, St. Louis tennis star Ted Drewes Sr.

Drewes’ father opened the family’s first frozen-custard stand in 1929. A St. Louis location debuted the next year on Natural Bridge Road, followed by the still-operating locations on South Grand Boulevard and Chippewa Street in 1931 and 1941, respectively.

Still, when Drewes Sr. died in 1968, frozen custard rated only a brief mention after his tennis exploits in his obituary in the Post-Dispatch.

“The reason Dad went into the ice cream business was so he could play tennis all year round,” Drewes said in a 1981 profile in the Post-Dispatch. “That’s the difference between my father and me. I allowed myself to get captured by the business. He never did.”

At that time, Drewes said he spent 80 hours a week between the two stands, though he did allow that some of that time was for “goofing off,” like testing sundae toppings with a salesperson.

Drewes made the Chippewa stand the hub of the frozen-custard business, more than doubling its number of service windows.

Drewes was also responsible for introducing his family to the frozen-custard stand’s other St. Louis tradition, its seasonal Christmas tree lot.

In 1953, Drewes ran the Christmas tree stand a businessman had set up on one of the stand’s parking lots. When that operator quit the next year, Drewes took it over himself. The family then purchased its own Christmas Tree farm in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Drewes is survived by wife Dorothy Jane Drewes, daughters Christy Dillon and Cynthia Verseman, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A public service to celebrate Drewes' life will be held at a later date, the family announced.