The first job Ben Hendershot ever had was at the Bike Source in Overland Park. The year was around 2000, he said, and he made $4 an hour plus 10 percent commission on sales.
Ben, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, now works for the Veterans Community Project in Kansas City, which builds tiny homes for veterans. He flies all over the country setting up projects, but the majority of the time he will be in Clinton, where on May 24, he and spouse Jessica Hendershot are opening a bicycle shop and ice cream parlor on Main Street.
They have three reasons. The first, Ben said, is the popularity of the KATY Trail, the longest rails to trails bicycle path, which draws cyclists from all over the world. The second: Clinton didn’t have a bicycle shop. And third: they want to provide local youth with a safe activity that’s an alternative to team sports.
“We want to serve the community,” Ben said.
Ben and Jessica were living in Peculiar, but two years ago, saw a house they liked in Clinton and moved. At the time, there was no ice cream shop, so they decided to combine the bike shop with a soda fountain to serve ice cream and milk shakes.
Jennifer Hinton and daughter Sarah Smidt, meanwhile, were remodeling an empty building on Main, planning to create three units of a Bed and Breakfast on the second floor for cyclists using the KATY Trail. They wanted to rent the street level to a bicycle shop and maybe a bakery, so when Mark Dawson, community development director for Clinton, connected the Hendershots to the Hintons, it was a good match.
The bike shop, called Cycles and Cream, will open on May 24. The bike side of the business will carry Specialized, Surly and State brand bicycles, Jessica said. Ben is the cyclist in the family, she said, and has ridden the KATY Trail. They have two daughters, Mariah, 2, and Raina, 12, a cheerleader who is in the honor society and the band at Clinton Middle School.
The ice cream will be from the Tillamook Dairy on the Oregon coast, famous for its cheddar cheese and ice cream. Sodas and shakes will be served from the old-fashioned soda fountain in the back of the Clinton shop.
Adding to the vintage vibe are the pink formica tables and blue booths, which Jennifer Hinton gave them. She found them at a vintage store and was storing them at the old Clinton Daily Democrat Building.
The Hendershots have a map they are going to hang on the wall, so cyclists can mark where they are from. Jessica is from Ozarks, Mo., Ben said, so Clinton is halfway between there and Kansas City.
Ben said he lived a lot of different places when he was growing up in addition to the Kansas City area. In the Marine Corps, Ben served in the Third FAST (Fleet Anti-terrorism Team) platoon, an elite unit based in Norfolk, Virginia, and in the First Battalion, 7th Marines in Twentynine Palms, California.
