🍦The Custard Chronicles: Passing the Scoop at Gilles Frozen Custard

MILWAUKEE, Wis. (CBS 58) -- After more than five decades behind the counter at Gilles Frozen Custard, Tom "Papa Scoop" Linscott is handing over more than just a scoop, he's passing on a family legacy.

CBS 58's Alex Corradetti went to Gilles to meet Linscott and look back at the years he spent helping build one of Milwaukee's longstanding frozen custard traditions.

Linscott started working at Gilles in March 1975, when he was just 14 years old.

"I worked for Paul Gillis, the guy that started it, his sister Mary, [and] a bunch of great people back then," Linscott said. "My dad was very involved then."

Back then, Linscott said simply getting a job was a big deal.

"There was probably one available job for every six to eight people that were looking for a job," he recalled. "You had to know somebody to get a job, and you used to fight for hours. So, life's kind of flipped a little bit, but that was the gig."

Once he got the job, there wasn't much he didn't do.

"I started out as our garbage boy, dishwasher, sweep up the garbage, clean up the garbage cans, take the inventory, stock, deliveries, miscellaneous stuff," Linscott said. "And when I lost some of my shyness, I came inside and started working with some of the other staff members. Started learning the custard machine, ran custard, did a lot of scooping."

And with all that scooping, came a new nickname.

"They call me Scoop," Linscott said. "You know what? It stuck, and I did a lot of it. I mean, I did a lot of it."

What started as a teenage job eventually became the family business. Linscott's father purchased Gilles in the late 1970s, and Tom remained part of the operation.

He said his father made him three promises about what life in the frozen custard business would bring.

"He said, 'You get involved in this business, you'll always have work, you'll never be hungry, and you'll never be rich,'" Linscott recalled. "So it worked out."

But more than five decades later, Linscott said his definition of "rich" has changed.

"The rich part, I got to take back to being the relationships and the amount of people that I've met," he said. "It's hard to wrap my brain around it when I slow down and think about it."

Those relationships include generations of customers who have made Gilles part of their own family traditions.

"When you're busy taking care of what needs to be taken care of behind that counter, you lose some of the perspective of how much a place can mean to somebody else," Linscott said. "I was always the guy in task mode and getting it done, and what needs to be done next, and what could be better. And then you start hearing stories, the amount of attachment people have and it's like Whoa," said Linscott. 

Now, Linscott is entering a new chapter. He said health concerns and the realization that time moves quickly helped him decide it was time to step away from the day-to-day demands of the business.

"The reality of time... you go to enough funerals, and it's like, what am I doing?" he said. "It's like that transitional point."

But walking away is easier knowing the person taking the reins has been beside him for years: his son, Willy Linscott.

Tom remembers the conversation when Willy told him he wanted to come back to Gilles for good.

"He said, 'I want to come back, not as a manager,'" Tom recalled. "He goes, 'I'm your exit plan.' And I started to interrupt, and he said, 'The more you interrupt me...' and he just laid it all out, and I was totally blindsided and grateful and concerned."

When we asked Tom how he feels knowing the business is in his son's hands, Tom didn't hesitate.

"Oh, comforted. I'm elated, ecstatic, grateful, humbled," he said.

For Willy, the business has also been a part of nearly his entire life.

He first joined the payroll as a 15-year-old in 2004, later leaving for college and another career before eventually realizing Gilles was where he wanted to be.

"My heart was here, and ultimately I came back," Willy said.

He said part of that decision came from thinking about everything his father, uncle and grandfather had put into Gilles — and what could happen if another generation didn't step forward.

"What would happen to it if I didn't step in?" Willy said. "If it went outside the family, if it got sold, that would probably tear me apart, you know, to see it get dismantled or changed to the point of not really being what it was."

Working alongside his father has given Willy something else he values just as much as the business itself: time.

"I get a ton of time with him that we didn't have when I wasn't here, or even growing up for that matter," Willy said. "And yes, it's work, but like, I'm with my dad. I enjoy it. I'm so grateful for it. It's extra time, and we have a lot of laughs."

That makes the transition bittersweet.

"So many times, even if it's a little question, big business issue, I had my dad to lean on," Willy said. "He was right there. My dad to call. He's in the room. We talk about it, bounce off ideas, and it feels a little strange that, like, he trusts that I'm ready for that. He may not be in the room anymore. I can handle it, but it's a little sad."

Still, Willy is ready for what's next, with one caveat.

"I'm ready to take over, but I'll never be Papa Scoopy," he said.

Tom agrees.

"I don't think you can earn that. You got to get your own darn nickname," he joked.

The nickname may not be passed down, but the lessons will be.

"I really appreciate and love the opportunity he gave me," Willy said of his father. "Everything that he showed me, how he set this place up, what he put into it. I don't take that for granted in any way. I feel a responsibility to keep it going and make something even more of it because he put so much of his life into it."

For Tom, seeing his son carry that legacy forward brings the story full circle.

He remembers Willy as a child reaching over the counter for a spoonful of custard while Tom's own father stood nearby.

"I remember the day that Willie was getting that spoonful of custard over the counter with my dad as well," Tom said. "And then fast forward, and I'm like, that's when it starts hitting you."

Now, Willy's own children are already showing an interest in the family business.

"My eight-year-old is jumping back here, like, 'Dad, can I come to work today? Can I come to work?'" Willy said. "And I love that. It gives me a chance to do what my dad and I did."

For a business built around tradition, Willy said each generation simply adds another chapter.

"We have a story to tell, and the chapters keep growing," he said.

Tom's chapter, Willy said, is a particularly important one.

"He's a pretty cool, interesting chapter, and one of the longest chapters," Willy said. "That's a lot of scoops."

And while Tom is retiring, he isn't disappearing.

When Willy once asked how long his dad would still be around to help after the transition, Tom's answer was simple: "Till my dying breath."

"The fact that I'm still his dad and I get to come, and he hasn't taken the keys from me," Tom joked, "I'm like, okay, I'm in."

At his retirement celebration, Willy raised a cup of custard in a toast to the man everyone knows as Papa Scoop.

"Dad, Tom, Papa Scoopy, thank you for all the years, all the laughs, all the lessons, all the opportunities, all the friends and all the love," Willy said. "May we continue to write the next chapter together as well, one scoop at a time."

Earlier this summer, Corradetti got the five families of frozen custard together for a special reunion at Oscar's in the Town of Brookfield. If you'd like to watch that story, click here.