Sheree and Bruce Lines have just opened Meltdown, a brand new and very tiny ice cream shop on The Old Cellar Lane just off Front Street in Hamilton.

With flower baskets hanging from the gazebo style roof, and prettily potted flowering plants sitting on a white, thickly painted wrought iron table just outside, ice cream eaters can sink back in cool relief and look through the rustic, enclosed lane and out towards Front Street.

And a stream of very hot visitors did flood in yesterday afternoon while The Royal Gazette was there, to visit the bright and cheerful little ice cream purveyor, tiled with pristine white porcelain with its offerings that include the Bermuda made and just released Alex & Pete’s Bermuda Artisan Ice Cream, in their — “Mmmm, that’s very good” (according to one customer yesterday) — St George’s Black Rum & Ginger flavour, as well as Rum Swizzle — made with Outerbridge’s Original Bermuda Rum Swizzle Mix, right from the shop doorstep.

Other flavours from different brands include Mint Chocolate Chip, Dutch Chocolate — “Like chocolate pudding”, said Mrs Lines — Cookies and Cream, Strawberries and Cream with chunks of strawberries, Butter Pecan, and vanilla, offered with magic shell chocolate (“Remember that?” asked a smiling Mrs Lines) or sprinkles.

They are sold in sugar cones or plain, and large and small cups.

The husband-and-wife team explained the time was right to start their new venture with their three children now grown up and out of the house. “Now the last one is off to college it’s time to get entrepreneurial!” Mr Lines said.

He explained how the idea was born. “I would walk down the street and tourists would ask me where they could get an ice cream — and I didn’t know, unless you sit down in a restaurant.” And Mrs Lines, whose career has included business and retail in Hamilton, added: “And people asked me for years about where to get ice cream.”

Her husband said he is getting close to retirement now. “I can’t sit still, so I decided to have a crack at it. I always wanted (a new business) to be small and simple,” he said.

“I was talking to my wife about it, and said to her: ‘If I could just find a hole in the wall somewhere on Front Street, I would go for it.’

“And the next day Sheree came home and said: ‘I’ve found your hole in the wall!’ And so we got started.”

Mrs Lines explained: “I was just walking through the lane that day, and there a sign on the door!”

The premises had been The Little Gallery operated by artist Diana Higginbotham, who has now moved to a new location.

She said: “We began in mid winter, experimenting with ice cream, with Alex & Pete’s and others as well. We came up with our range which included Alex & Pete’s Black Rum & Ginger and also the Rum Swizzle.”

And yesterday afternoon sweltering tourists did have somewhere to buy ice cream. Flocking through The Old Cellar Lane to Meltdown, they gratefully sank into benches and chairs with their cones and pots, making appreciative comments between mouthfuls.

Mr and Mrs Lines say a total of three people will run the ice cream shop. And they should be offering water and other drinks such as iced tea soon.

And, Mrs Lines added: “I have a friend who makes the best biscotti in the world, so we will be selling bags of biscotti shortly.”