Lickity Splitz Bets on Rome City and Still Stands

Lickity Splitz Ice Cream and Coffee is still serving walk-up and drive-thru orders at 3204 East County Road 900 North in Rome City, 15 months after its grand opening. The Speicher family put a third business on their 40-acre property and bet that a shrinking lakeside town would stop for coffee at 6 a.m. and ice cream after dark.

The stand is still there. Winter hours got shorter. A veteran pizza truck joined the counter. In September 2026 the shop landed on statewide food trails that already listed the parlor down by the water.

The Drive-Thru on County Road 900 North

Lickity Splitz Ice Cream and Coffee, LLC held a soft opening on Sunday, June 22, 2025, from noon to 7:30 p.m., then ran June 23 through June 27 from 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. before a short close. The grand opening was Monday, June 30, 2025, from 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

The menu from day one mixed breakfast, lunch and dinner with ice cream, coffee, dirty sodas, and specialty drinks, plus mini doughnuts and shakes. Service is walk-up and drive-thru, on a county road rather than the lake shore. Planned hours after launch were Monday through Friday, closed Thursday, 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and Saturday from noon to 7:30 p.m.

That mix is the wager. A cone shop can live on July traffic. A 6 a.m. coffee window has to pull people who already live here, or the lights go off in March.

Rome City Is Small, Older, and Built Around the Lake

Rome City sits in Orange Township in Noble County, along State Road 9 beside Sylvan Lake. The lake association counts 669 acres of water and 16 miles of shoreline, with skiing, fishing, and a public boat launch. The state’s 148-acre Gene Stratton-Porter historic site sits on the shore in the cabin she finished in 1914.

The people who stay year-round are fewer and older than the summer crowd on the water. The Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimate puts the town at 1,182 people and a median age of 53.8, about 1.4 times Indiana’s median. Mean travel time to work is 30.9 minutes, which is the kind of commute that makes a county-road coffee window useful if it stays open.

ROME CITY IN THE 2024 CENSUS

Those numbers describe a bedroom and lake town, not a food strip. If Lickity Splitz works, it works because drivers on County Road 900 North treat it as a habit, not because 1,182 residents can support three full restaurants.

Malissa Speicher Built It for Her Father

Co-owner Malissa Speicher said the idea came from her father. He was the realist in a family that already ran two other businesses, she said, and he still liked the thought of the Speichers owning an ice cream shop. He died three years before the stand opened, and she wanted Lickity Splitz in his honor.

I think it’ll bring people into town. Instead of being a drive-through town, it will be a stop.

Malissa Speicher, co-owner, Lickity Splitz

Co-owner Jason Speicher said he hopes the shop helps fund college for both of their daughters. Alyssa and Aubree Speicher already work the other two family businesses: Limberlost Souls, a haunted trail the family runs in the fall, and Outbak Photography, which shoots year-round. Before opening day they were teaching the rest of the family how to make the coffees, after seasons of clown costumes on the trail and photo jobs on the side.

The Speichers said they wanted the food affordable and Rome City a better place to stay. The college line is the private version of the same bet. A seasonal cone window does not pay tuition. A year-round counter might.

Winter Cut Weekday Service to Mornings

By March 16, 2026, the shop had been open over 8 months and the weekday clock had changed. Monday through Thursday ran 6 a.m. to noon. Friday ran 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday was 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The 6 a.m. coffee habit stayed. The long evening ice cream shift did not.

That same week Hustler Six Pizza Company, a veteran-owned truck working Noble and DeKalb counties, began selling 5+ pizzas at the ice cream and coffee shop. Owner Maynard (JR) Depew named the truck for six colleagues killed on patrol near Bagram Field in Afghanistan on December 21, 2015. He served in the Middle East and built pies with names like Jalapeño Ops, Sweet Heat Tactical, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, and Dill Strike, next to cheese, sausage, and pepperoni.

It means everything to me. I’m passionate about this story, I’m passionate about their story, they were all friends of mine and coworkers. I love serving good pizza and I also love talking about them and what they did.

Maynard Depew, owner, Hustler Six Pizza Company

On June 1, 2026, the shop’s own Facebook page said summer hours were back, with no more split days, and listed 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. The winter cut and the pizza add-on are the same fact from two sides. Lake traffic does not fill a county-road window in March, so the family shortened the day and borrowed another cook’s menu to keep the counter busy.

THE FIRST 15 MONTHS ON COUNTY ROAD 900 NORTH

1. June 22, 2025: Hosts a soft opening from noon to 7:30 p.m. at 3204 East County Road 900 North.
2. June 23-27, 2025: Runs 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., then closes ahead of the launch.
3. June 30, 2025: Holds the grand opening from 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
4. March 16, 2026: Adds Hustler Six pizza and posts weekday hours that end at noon.
5. June 1, 2026: Restores full-day summer hours, 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, with split shifts over.
6. September 2, 2026: Joins Indiana Foodways as a new member shop.

The pattern is not a straight climb. It is a shop that stayed open by changing the clock and sharing the window.

Where the Ice Cream and Coffee Come From

The Speichers did not try to invent a dairy. Ingredients were always supposed to come from around Greater Fort Wayne, including Kuehnert Dairy Farm and Country Roads Coffee. A Country Roads post the day before the grand opening said the stand would pour its beans, scoop Kuehnert hard ice cream, and run Prairie Farms soft serve.

Kuehnert has farmed near Fort Wayne since 1897. The fifth generation now milk 300 cows each day on 1,200 acres of corn, hay, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa, and rye grass, and bottles milk on the farm. Country Roads roasts in Albion and still lists Lickity Splitz as a Rome City serving stop for its coffee.

WHAT THE COUNTY ROAD COUNTER POURS AND SCOOPS

• Kuehnert hard scoop: Ice cream from a fifth-generation dairy that milks 300 cows and bottles on the farm.
• Country Roads coffee: Beans roasted in Albion and served at the Rome City window.
• Prairie Farms soft serve: Named by Country Roads in its grand-opening post as the soft-serve line beside the hard scoop.
• Hustler Six pizza: Five or more pies from Depew’s truck, added in March 2026.
• The rest of the board: Breakfast, lunch and dinner, dirty sodas, specialty drinks, mini doughnuts, and shakes.

Those names are the hidden payroll of the bet. If the window closes, Albion loses a pour account and the dairy loses a scoop account. If it holds, a 40-acre family property becomes a small wholesale stop on a county road.

The Scoop Shop That Already Had the Lake

Rome City already had ice cream. Sundaes on Sylvan, at 253 Kelly St, sits on the water with a deck, waffle cones, and a summer crowd that arrives by car and by boat. Listings still push hot dogs, walking tacos, and a long flavor board, and the parlor remains the place you send someone who wants a view with the scoop.

Lickity Splitz never tried to beat that view. It opened inland, on the family’s land, with a drive-thru and a breakfast clock the lake shop does not run. The two stands sell the same food group in the same town of 1,182 and still ask different things of a customer.

TWO ICE CREAM STOPS IN ONE SMALL TOWN

A town this size does not need two identical parlors. It can hold a lake deck and a county-road window if one of them is really a coffee and meal stop that happens to scoop ice cream. That is the line the Speichers have been walking since June 2025.

Indiana Foodways Put Both Shops on the Same Map

On September 2, 2026, Indiana Foodways, the group behind the state’s culinary trails, named Lickity Splitz Ice Cream and Coffee in Rome City as one of its newest members, alongside Titus Bakery in Lebanon and 4 Speed on 50s Diner in Lawrenceburg.

Let's give a warm welcome to our newest members!

– Titus Bakery in Lebanon
– 4 Speed on 50s Diner in Lawrenceburg
– Lickity Splitz Ice Cream & Coffee in Rome City

Welcome to the Indiana Foodways family.#IndianaFoodways #DiscoverBoone #DearbornCountyIndiana #VisitNobleCounty pic.twitter.com/DRKDRYiUSc

— Indiana Foodways (@IndianaFoodways) September 2, 2026

The shop is stop 20 on the 48-stop I Scream for Ice Cream Trail. Sundaes on Sylvan is stop 31 on the same list. Lickity Splitz also appears on the Coffee and Tea Trail, which has 40 stops, and the Sweet Temptations Trail, which has 63. The trail pages spell the town “Roam City,” but the address is the Rome City window on 900 North.

Putting both shops on one statewide ice cream map treats the county-road drive-thru as a destination, which is what Malissa Speicher said she wanted on opening day. It does not settle the winter problem. A trail listing brings Saturday travelers. It does not fill a 6 a.m. window on a Tuesday in March, which is why the family already learned to cut the day and add pizza.

Fifteen months after the June 30, 2025 grand opening, the lights on County Road 900 North are still on. The bet was never that Rome City would turn into a food town. It was that one family, already running a haunted trail and a photo business, could make a 40-acre property a stop, and keep it one through a winter the lake does not cover.