Iconic Ice Cream Parlor May Return to Wayne

Looks like the Old Barn Milk Bar may be making a comeback.

The Planning Board approved an application Sept. 23 to construct an ice cream parlor and restaurant called The Old Milk Barn at the intersection of Colfax Road and Terhune Drive.

A 6,000 square-foot building would be built at the empty 1.4-acre lot. There will be enough parking for 70 vehicles. The county must also review and approve the application because Colfax and Terhune are county-owned roadways.

Richard Lauretta, the applicant, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Old Barn Milk Bar was a fixture in town for 56 years before it closed Dec. 10 2001. Preakness Chevrolet bought the property but went out of business a few years later.

Lines 100 people long were not uncommon at the North Jersey hotspot. People would often wait an hour for a big cone of their favorite ice cream. The place was always busy after Little League games.

“It was a place where a lot of romances started and ended,” then-Wayne resident Tim Blixt told the New York Times in 2002.

Olaf Haroldson purchased the property in 1930 and opened an ice cream shop. However, gas rationing and a bad economy forced Haroldson to sell it to Robert McNinn. He operated it until the 1980s. His son and nephew took over and ran it until it closed. The barn frame was reportedly built in 1790 from Dutch timber. The barn was disassembled and the pieces stored on the site of the historic Van Riper-Hopper House Museum on Berdan Avenue.

‘I know that a lot of residents were upset when it was taken down,” said Caryn Loberto, vice chairwoman of the Wayne Economic Development Commission (EDC). “To have a business like this one come back is a very welcoming idea.”

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