ST. JACOBS — Here's the sad scoop on the old caboose on Front Street.

After 29 years, the last pralines and cream sundae has been served in the rebuilt old boxcar parked on old train tracks behind the silos of the old mill.

The favourite flavour of the St. Jacobs patrons of Moser's Ice Cream Caboose is no longer in stock. The coolers and frozen yogurt makers are headed for Kijiji.

The old hand scoops are destined to be mementos for the children who used to staff the stationary ice cream stand on wheels.

Judy Moser, 57, is giving up trying to save her melting dream business.

The passage of time and the encroachment of development seemed aligned against her Raspberry Ripple legacy.

"I'm not one to get into the sticky stuff," Moser said on Tuesday as she cleaned out the old ice cream caboose with the help of her husband Dennis, a retired police officer and firefighter.

At the start of April, Moser got a registered letter from her landlord, Mercedes Corp. Her lease would not be renewed. Construction was coming to the property. She had to gather her cones and scoops and get out.

It all seemed so cold and impersonal, even for the frigid frozen confections business. The late Milo Shantz, who founded Mercedes Corp., used to walk over and enjoy a vanilla ice cream from their happy red caboose.

"There's always change, right?" said Milo's son Marcus, now Mercedes president, on Tuesday afternoon. "I realize it can be hard to face change, especially when it's a place so many people have enjoyed."

And this change has been coming for some time. Shantz said he had conversations about the possibility with the Mosers in recent years.

"It didn't come out of the blue," he said.

Construction work on the property is happening. Mixed-use development — residential, commercial and retail — is coming. The old path up the mill race is being restored.

There are no plans to remove the old caboose, Shantz said. Earlier this month, he suggested they might open for a few months this spring and summer. But that offer came too late, they said. The sign was down. The business was already being dismantled.

So Moser's Ice Cream crossing is shut down. Judy and Dennis raised three children — Ben, Luke and Jessica — on the bubble gum scoops of a banana-split past.

The old doggie delights Judy once dished out for visiting pooches — ice cream with a milk bone on top — are a forgotten tail-wagging treat.

She'll spend more time being a grandmother, once her old scoops have a new home.

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She's grateful for the outpouring of support for the ice cream caboose on social media. But the area has changed. There's a bitter taste on Front Street's sweetest corner.

"There's nobody out here anymore," she said.