ittle Man Ice Cream Factory in the West Colfax neighborhood has no shortage of quirky, Willy Wonka–esque design details—from an ice-cream-sandwich-shaped serving’s most treasured piece at the four-year-old facility is an 8-foot-tall reproduction of a black-and-white photo, on display in the kitchen. Taken in the mid-1950s, the snapshot shows Tamburello’s father, Peter, and brother Michael just after enjoying an ice cream cone in Georgetown, Colorado. Family road trips to the mountain town were “just magical,” Tamburello says, especially when his parents treated him and his four siblings to slow-churned scoops from mom-and-pop sweets shops. These memories inspired Tamburello’s own family of creameries, including Sweet Cooie’s and Little Man, nods to nicknames for his mother and father, respectively. “My father was half-Sicilian, and he was about 5-foot-6,” Tamburello says. “As he got older, in his 70s, [the nickname] became a term of endearment.” The factory, which includes a production kitchen and tasting room, honors the patriarch’s fun-loving spirit through its playful atmosphere. “That was a hallmark of my dad,” Tamburello says. “Anywhere he went, he was that charismatic [guy]. He just made every experience better.” Lucky for Denverites, his legacy is as delicious as it is entertaining.
