Bassetts' 150 yummy years

As Reading Terminal Market opened in 1893, months in advance of the great train shed overhead, teacher Lewis Dubois Bassett set up a white-tiled ice cream shop along the 12th Street windows.

The trains have come and gone. So has every other Reading Terminal merchant.

On Saturday, Bassetts - run in the same spot by two great-great-grandsons - will lead an ice cream festival in the market's center court, with free ice cream and games. Attendees can re-create the old-time service technique of sliding dishes along the marble counter.

The company - which traces itself to 1861, when Bassett began churning in his Salem, N.J., backyard - now sells worldwide. Twenty percent of sales are now in China, say cousins Michael Strange and Roger Bassett, who run the business their great-great-grandfather started. (Bassetts shed its apostrophe as it gained acolytes.)

Bassetts is billing Saturday's event as its 150th anniversary. It's also a testament to the current generation.

In 1980, with Reading Terminal Market falling into disrepair, Roger Bassett was a 21-year-old student at Rider College in Lawrenceville, N.J. He said his father, David, told him he would close the store. Roger agreed to take over, juggling classes, renegotiating the lease, and simplifying. "We were selling sandwiches, cheese, and ice cream. I ripped that all out and got back to ice cream - large portions at a good price," says Roger, now 52.

In 1983, Roger was also running a sundae bar in the market when his father asked him to fix him a sandwich. Roger Bassett bought turkey, produce, and bread at the market, roasted the turkey in a portable oven, and created what became the Original Turkey, a Bassetts-branded shop that later started franchising. The original stand is still at Reading Terminal Market.

That summer, cousin Michael Strange, also a great-great-grandson of the founder who was working for what was then Pricewaterhouse, joined the business. His mother, Ann, and L.L. Bassett, his retirement-age grandfather, took him out for dinner and "did a full-court press on me," says Strange, now 50.

Bassetts, which wholesales to thousands of "dip shops," is also a wholesale distributor, transporting Capogiro gelato and the Chilly Philly, Turkey Hill, and Potts brands.

Control has shifted. Roger, busy with turkey, sold the retail to Michael in 1990. When Michael wanted out in 2002, they restructured, making Michael president and Roger managing partner.

Now the sixth generation is involved: Roger Bassett's son, Eric, 17, and Strange's brother's 19-year-old twins, Alex and Stuart, who live in Minnesota and have worked at the stand over vacations.