„Gelatieri“ already migrated from Italy northwards at the beginning of the 20th century – Italians who wanted to bring their ice-cold delicacies to men, women and children in the roads and streets of the Ruhr Region. This of course only happened in summer because they travelled back to their homeland in the autumn months.
In the beginning they roamed the streets with their ice carts, but in the first half of the 20th century street-selling was subjected to increasing restrictions, and so other selling methods had to be found. In this way the first ice cream parlours came about.
Unna’s first ice cream parlour had very modest dimensions – in the 1950s the first Italian ice creams in Unna were sold through a window in the ground storey of a house in a small side street of the market square.
Both the house and the road now no longer exist.
Selling through the window of an apartment was not unusual at the time – shops were much too expensive for many Gelatieri and so they sold from their own homes. To enable customers to easily grasp the cones, wooden floorboards were installed below the windows onto which customers could step. This is the origin of the German name „Eisdiele“ [diele = floorboard].
At the site of the narrow grey building with protruding balconies a small alley used to open out onto the marketplace in which Unna’s first Italian ice-cream parlour was located.
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