How Big Dipper Ice Cream Kept Making It by Hand After Missoula Made It Famous

Charlie Beaton turned down industrial scale. Thirty years later, each scoop still comes from an 800-square-foot production room.

In 2016, Xanterra Parks and Resorts asked Charlie Beaton if Big Dipper Ice Cream could supply lodges in Yellowstone and Glacier national parks. Beaton looked at the volume they needed and knew his shop couldn't come close. His Missoula production room runs about 800 square feet. Xanterra's first order alone called for a 48,000-pound shipment.

He could have expanded. Instead, he partnered with Meadow Gold to manufacture a separate brand called Big Dipper Select, built for that volume, while keeping every scoop sold at Big Dipper's own counters made on-site in the same small rooms where his crew has always worked. The move cost him direct control over a major product line. It also left the original ice cream untouched.

That decision only makes sense if you know how Big Dipper started. Beaton never planned to serve customers at a counter. The original business was wholesale only.

Charlie Beaton and the Wholesale Bet

Beaton grew up in Helena and came to Missoula for college. He graduated from the University of Montana in 1991 with a business degree, tried selling insurance, and quit. The only job he'd genuinely enjoyed was making ice cream at Goldsmith's, a now-closed shop near campus where he'd worked as a student.

In 1995, he put startup costs on a credit card, borrowed cash from his parents, and rented the back half of a pottery warehouse on Myrtle Street. His friend Tim O'Leary, also from Helena, occupied the front half brewing beer. O'Leary's side became KettleHouse Brewing Co. Beaton bought a 20-quart Emery Thompson machine and started selling to local accounts like Butterfly Herbs and the Good Food Store.

A year later, business partner Dale Bickell pushed for a retail window. Barbie Beaton, Charlie's fiancee at the time, came on as a partner. They opened at the corner of 5th and South Higgins in 1996, and the Beatons bought Bickell out around 2000. Bickell later became the Chief Administrative Officer for the City of Missoula.

Big Dipper on the Hip Strip

The South Higgins storefront has been Big Dipper Ice Cream's flagship for thirty years. The block sits a few minutes south of the Clark Fork River, between the UM campus and Hellgate High School, in a stretch of locally owned shops that Missoula calls the Hip Strip.

By 2003, Beaton has said, the business shifted into a growth phase he didn't anticipate. A second Missoula location opened on Paxson Street in 2020, with construction delays from the pandemic cutting into summer revenue. Helena opened in 2010 as a franchise. Bryan Hickey, who started scooping ice cream for Beaton in 2000, became a partner in 2015 and launched the Billings location. Great Falls followed. Five Montana locations now, with no franchise model outside the state.

How the Ice Cream Gets Made at Big Dipper

Every location produces its own ice cream in a production area of roughly 800 square feet: walk-in freezer, production equipment, retail windows. The ice cream runs 15 percent butterfat. More than 25 flavors are available at any given time, and the shop has developed hundreds over the years, from maple chipotle with bacon and hazelnuts to mascarpone with balsamic fig swirl to coconut lemon curry.

The flavor development pulls in other Missoula businesses in a way that depends on everyone knowing each other. Posh Chocolat makes the caramel sauce and mix-ins. Bob Marshall from Biga Pizza helped design some of the more unusual combinations. Drum Coffee and Black Coffee contributed to coffee-based flavors. Downtown restaurants carry their own exclusives: Scotty's Table has a custom ice cream, Sa Wad Dee has a coconut flavor made for their menu.

Beaton credits much of the creative range to younger staff. The shop hires adults alongside high school and college students, and new flavors often come from the people behind the counter. Mike Gerrity, mentioned in NBC Montana's 30th anniversary coverage, works production and handles route deliveries. Another employee answered a newspaper ad for an ice cream maker in 2008 and stayed seventeen years.

The non-dairy menu is a visible gap. Sorbets are always available, but dedicated non-dairy ice cream flavors show up as occasional specials rather than regular offerings. For a shop with this much creative output, the absence registers in reviews. It is the one recurring criticism in an otherwise dominant reputation: 633 TripAdvisor reviews, a number-one ranking out of 220 Missoula restaurants, and a Yelp health score of 99 out of 100.

Bryan Hickey and a Thirty-Year Line

Hickey's path through Big Dipper is its own arc. He got the job because Beaton saw his band Volumen play at a Missoula show and thought Hickey looked like his best friend. Hickey started scooping, learned production, moved into management, and by 2015 was a partner. He now serves as president and oversees all five locations.

The national attention has never really stopped since Good Morning America named Big Dipper one of the best ice cream shops in the country in 2013. Food and Wine Magazine, USA Today, and Outside Online followed. The Coneboy, a vintage ice cream truck that launched in 2010, shows up at festivals, weddings, graduation parties, and Grizzly football games. Big Dipper donates ice cream to every Runner's Edge race and Camp Make-A-Dream event, and has partnered with Missoula Gives to hand out free cones to donors.

The shop turned 30 in 2025. They threw a party with a DJ and an ice cream eating contest and debuted a birthday flavor: whipped cream ice cream with confetti cake made by Bake Sale Bakery. Charlie Beaton still runs the company as CEO. Barbie Beaton has been a partner since before they were married. Hickey handles daily operations. The Higgins Avenue windows still open at 11 a.m. in summer, and by noon on a hot Saturday the line reaches the sidewalk.