Wednesday, October 7, 2026
Charles Mattina, 53, has kept an ice cream scoop in his hand for decades. This weekend, the longtime Oceanside shop he has owned since the 1990s officially reopens under a new name and a new concept: Sizzle and Scoop, a year-round eatery at 3286 Long Beach Road, serving homemade ice cream alongside burgers, hot dogs and other comfort foods.
“I’ve owned it for 30 years,” Mattina said. “I made homemade ice cream — people already love that. Now we’re going to offer more food.”
The menu will include $4 hamburgers made from fresh, never-frozen meat supplied by nearby Janowski in Rockville Centre, two styles of chicken — including a buttermilk version — hot dogs and about 24 ice cream flavors, six of them vegan. Mattina, who grew up in Queens before moving to Syosset, said the shift from an ice-cream-only model was necessary to sustain a business on Long Island.
“You need a 12-month-a-year business to live on Long Island,” he said. “Five months a year you do good business with ice cream, but you need more months — so I have no choice.”
The location on a busy corner — Mattina pointed to its multiple entrances and an existing drive-through zoning — convinced him to expand the shop’s offerings. He said Sizzle and Scoop will keep the shop’s homemade base for ice cream and add digital menu boards and rotating specials, while leaning into local sourcing and freshly prepared items.
“We make banana (ice cream) with real bananas,” he said. “ I make coffee with real coffee,” he said. It’s a creamier type of ice cream… the more butter fat you have, the creamier it is.” He encouraged customers to try the banana fudge crunch and touted his vegan options as “outrageously good.”
The rebrand is the latest in a long run for Mattina. His family has deep ties to the Carvel franchise; his father Charles Sr. ran several Carvel stores and taught him the trade. Mattina converted his location from Carvel to the locally branded “Frozen Side” in 2018 after contractual issues with the Carvel franchise. He said the lease renewal and franchisor practices — including what he described as increased oversight — motivated him to go independent.
“They wanted to start tracking your sales, start micromanaging,” he said. “I saw the writing on the wall.”
In January he ended the Frozen Side brand and is prepared to relaunch this weekend as Sizzle and Scoop. Mattina recounted how a childhood injury and a subsequent settlement helped launch his business career. “When I was a kid, a 250-pound cement block landed on my foot when I was hopping a fence, just being a kid,” he said. “When I turned 18, it was 50 grand in the bank from a lawsuit. My father said, ‘What do you want to do? Buy a Corvette or buy a store?’” Mattina recalled. His father, a former schoolteacher who owned several Carvel stores, steered him into the business.
“Dad taught us everything,” Mattina said. “I learned how to decorate cakes, make cakes.”
Family remains central to the operation. Mattina said his wife, Tara, who worked as a branch manager at Keystone Automotive, previously would handle the bookkeeping and day-to-day administrative tasks while he runs the floor, make the ice cream and decorates cakes.
“She’s the brains of the operation,” Mattina said. “I talk to the people — I’m the high-energy one. She does the accounts receivable.”
But now that couple has a seven-year- old son, Tara stays at home to care, and Mattina said fatherhood has been life changing.
“It’s been the greatest,” he said. “Some things are meant to be in life.”
Sizzle and Scoop’s opening was delayed by construction and permitting, Mattina said, but he planned a soft opening earlier this week and a full grand opening this Saturday, complete with a bounce house, face painters and giveaways of T-shirts and tote bags. He said he hopes to staff the shop with 20 to 25 employees working in staggered shifts to cover front- and back-of-house needs.
The shop’s hours will be 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. daily, Mattina said, an expanded schedule intended to capture both day and evening crowds. He also plans to be more aggressive with marketing than he was in the past. “I didn’t tap into social media,” he admitted. “Now I’ve got kids who do that stuff. I paid someone to set up the website.”
Mattina said he is hopeful that stronger signage, the new menu and better promotion will draw customers.
“Before, people would drive by and I can’t tell what you are,” he said. “Now you look at the signs we got up, I got the whole building covered.”
Community ties matter to Mattina. He said he has reconnected with the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce and hopes leadership joins the grand-opening festivities. For now, his focus is simple.
“My goal right now is to get that grand opening, just to get it going and see what happens,” he said. “We’ll be ready to rock and roll.”
