New Bay Minette Ice Cream Shop Pays Tribute to City’s Lost Water Tower

A new dessert destination has opened in downtown Bay Minette, giving residents of North Baldwin County a sweet reason to stop in — and a nod to a piece of local history that no longer stands.

WaterTower Creamery, located at 708 D’Olive St., opened its doors on Aug. 1 and has already built a steady following in its first few weeks. The shop is owned by Michael Carter and Robert Karcz, a Bay Minette couple who previously ran the American Pride Petroleum gas station before selling that business in 2024. After taking time off to travel internationally, the pair decided to return home and start something new.

“I’m just glad to be back in Baldwin County and being back in Bay Minette doing something I love, like being with people,” Carter said.

An Homage to a Local Landmark

The shop’s name honors the concrete water tower that once stood over Bay Minette. Built in 1915, the structure was one of only two of its kind ever built in the United States, making it a distinctive piece of the city’s skyline for decades. It was later torn down to make way for upgrades at the local correctional center — a loss Carter felt personally, since the tower was a familiar sight during his daily drives to American Pride Petroleum.

Carter said the idea for the shop’s name came to him even before the business was official. While he and Karcz were on their way to sign a supplier contract with Cammie’s Old Dutch Ice Cream, he already knew what he wanted to call the new venture.

“I told (Karcz) if we get this, I want to name it WaterTower Creamery because I just love the name. I love the water tower,” Carter said. “To me, that just always felt like home. That always felt like Bay Minette.”

More Than 30 Flavors

WaterTower Creamery serves roughly 32 flavors of ice cream along with four sorbet options. The lineup includes crowd-pleasers such as Biscoff, banana pudding, cookie monster, birthday cake, cotton candy and bubble gum. Beyond scoops, the shop offers milkshakes and a specialty item called ice cream nachos, made with crushed waffle cone pieces served alongside two scoops of ice cream.

The shop is open Tuesday through Saturday from noon to 9 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 6 p.m. Carter said they plan to extend hours on select Fridays during Baldwin County High School home football games, giving fans a place to grab a treat before or after kickoff.

For a city that lost a beloved landmark, WaterTower Creamery offers a new gathering spot that keeps its memory alive — one scoop at a time.

The water tower that defined a skyline

The concrete water tower WaterTower Creamery honors was more than a utility; for decades it was a landmark Bay Minette residents used to orient themselves, a structure visible from the roads Carter drove daily to his old gas-station business. Built in 1915 and described as one of only two of its kind ever constructed in the United States, it was an unusual piece of civic infrastructure — a concrete tower rather than the steel tanks more common across small Southern towns. Its demolition to make way for correctional-facility upgrades removed a familiar silhouette from the city, and Carter’s decision to name a new shop after it is a small act of civic memory: keeping the lost tower in daily conversation by putting it on a storefront.

From gas station to ice cream

The shop’s owners did not come to desserts by the usual route. Carter and Karcz ran American Pride Petroleum, a gas station, before selling it in 2024 and traveling internationally, then returned home to open WaterTower Creamery at 708 D’Olive St. That path — from fuel to frozen custard — is its own story of reinvention, and the couple’s stated joy at being back among people in Bay Minette is the kind of small-business motive that chain stores cannot fake. Signing with Cammie’s Old Dutch Ice Cream as supplier gave them a product source while they supplied the place, the name and the welcome.

A gathering spot for North Baldwin

Bay Minette is the county seat of Baldwin County but often sits in the shadow of the beach communities to the south, and a destination ice cream shop is exactly the kind of third place a county seat benefits from — somewhere families drive in for on a summer evening. With roughly 32 flavors plus sorbets, milkshakes and the novelty “ice cream nachos,” the shop gives North Baldwin residents a reason to congregate downtown rather than heading to the beaches or Mobile. The plan to extend hours on Baldwin County High School football Fridays ties the shop to the community’s existing rhythm, catching fans before and after kickoff at the kind of local event that anchors small-town life.

Keeping a landmark alive in name

Naming a business after a demolished structure is a quiet form of preservation. The water tower is gone, but the name WaterTower Creamery keeps it spoken, mapped and remembered by a new generation of Bay Minette residents who may never have seen it standing. For a city that lost a distinctive piece of its skyline, that is a small consolation and a shrewd one — the shop becomes a miniature monument, one scoop at a time, and the owners’ affection for the old tower is the sincerity behind it.

Small business as community building

A shop like WaterTower Creamery does more than sell dessert; it gives a downtown a reason to gather, and in a county seat that competes with the beaches for attention, that is economic development of the gentlest kind. Carter and Karcz’s return home after international travel to open the shop is a small rebuttal to the idea that success means leaving — they built something in the place they missed. The 32-flavor lineup and the novelty items are the draw, but the name and the welcome are what turn a first visit into a habit, and habits are what keep a downtown alive through the slow months between festivals and football.

The name as a love letter to Bay Minette

Carter’s plain statement — “that always felt like home. That always felt like Bay Minette” — is the emotional core of the shop, and it explains why a water tower, of all things, became a brand. Most businesses name themselves for what they sell; WaterTower Creamery names itself for what it loves. That distinction is rare and, for a local audience, powerful: customers read the name and hear a neighbor saying the town matters. In a county where loyalty is regional and fierce, a shop that wears its affection for Bay Minette on the sign is selling more than ice cream — it is selling belonging, one cone at a time.

Flavors and the fun of choice

The 32-flavor lineup — Biscoff, banana pudding, cookie monster, birthday cake, cotton candy, bubble gum and more — is the kind of abundance that turns a stop into an event for a child and a nostalgia trip for a parent. Ice cream shops live and die on that variety and on the novelty that sets them apart, and WaterTower Creamery’s “ice cream nachos” answer that need with a shareable, Instagram-ready item built from crushed waffle cone and two scoops. The Tuesday-through-Saturday and Sunday hours, with football-Friday extensions, track the real rhythm of a county-seat evening, when families look for a treat after dinner or after the game. It is a small business built to fit the week it serves.

Downtown Bay Minette’s moment

WaterTower Creamery arrives as North Baldwin’s county seat works to breathe more life into its core, and a destination dessert shop is a low-cost, high-visibility way to do it. Unlike a big-box retailer, an ice cream parlor draws repeat, local traffic — families who come weekly, not yearly — and that cadence is what turns a downtown street into a place rather than a pass-through. If the shop thrives, it makes the case for more small ventures on D’Olive Street and reinforces Bay Minette’s identity as a seat of community, not just of county government. Carter and Karcz may have set out to sell scoops; they may also have helped anchor a revival.

A sweet reason to stop in

In the end, WaterTower Creamery is the kind of business that earns its place by being loved locally before it is known widely. A couple came home, named a shop for a lost landmark, and opened the doors with more than 30 flavors and a welcome that reads as genuine — and within weeks it had a steady following, which is the only review that matters for a storefront on D’Olive Street. For Bay Minette, the shop is a small victory for downtown and a tender one for memory: the water tower is gone, but its name now draws people in, one scoop at a time, keeping a piece of the city’s skyline alive in the most pleasant way a landmark can survive.