Here’s to Avri and Amora Schena and the special little sweet spot just off Revere Beach where the sisters run an ice cream parlor that has served up cool treats since 1977.
Sure, there are ice cream stands dotting the landscape and more than a few have been around longer than 40 years. But the Banana Boat is that rare type of small business that has managed to cultivate new customers year after year even as it stays true to its beginnings.
There are a few other businesses along Revere Beach like the Banana Boat — Bianchi’s comes to mind — that have survived on the city’s waterfront in the face of change. Revere Beach in 40 years has undergone transformations that erased the once-famed boardwalk with its arcades and replaced those yesteryear memories with new development.
Revere Beach for decades was an entertainment destination for people who took public transportation to the beach for a day of fun and sun spent on the beach and on the amusement park rides.
The arcades and the rides went the way of black-and-white television and telephone booths and residential towers replaced the roller coaster. Today, the beachfront and Ocean Avenue one block in from the beach are enhancing Revere’s status as a place to live with attractive views and a subway ride just a few stops from downtown Boston.
The Banana Boat bridged this transformation and survived and thrived throughout the decades for reasons every Revere resident can appreciate. The Schena sisters stuck to what they know best and they didn’t try to convince their customers they had any other reason to stop on Beach Street for an ice cream.
They attracted neighbors and people they knew to their business and, over the years, they made friends with the children and grandchildren of those first customers. The Banana Boat became a business that attracted repeat customers and counted locals and out-of-towners among the regulars.
On hot summer days, people pack around the service windows and on quieter days there is time for conservation about the Red Sox and the weather between ordering and taking that first delicious bite.
Businesses like the Banana Boat are the glue that holds the economies in cities like Revere and smaller communities together. The local economic structure can change with development replacing amusement and vacant lots becoming the drawing board for big dreams. But true success, in business terms, is defined in a city like Revere by Avri and Amora Schena and the loyalty and perseverance they demonstrate year after year.
Running a small business isn’t for everyone. Words like “vacation” and “weekend” aren’t found very often in the small business owner’s vocabulary so it is a tribute to tenacity when a corner merchant can sustain a business for 40 years. Mayor Brian Arrigo will celebrate that tenacity when he salutes the Schena sisters on Friday with a celebration honoring their contribution to Revere.