3 Myrtle Beach ice cream shops bear similar names. One wants you to know it’s the ‘Original’
North Myrtle Beach’s Original Painter’s Homemade Ice Cream is a vision straight from the past. Since it was built in the 1950s, the single-story, standalone shop and its iconic red facade have hardly changed.
Though, the list of fans pasted up on its windows has grown over the years, among the most prominent: North Myrtle Beach legend Vanna White.
“We’re building on a long legacy,” said Dominic Munafo, the ice cream “king” and son of Original Painter’s owner James Mantzanas. (He says White gave him that nickname.) “I bleed ice cream. I do. I love it. Every day I get up, I’ve got something new to look forward to. New faces, new places, new things to do.”
For a business with bona fides built on not changing, it’s dealt with a major reputational change in the last couple of months.
That’s because two similarly named businesses down south, the “Painter’s Homemade Ice Cream” shops on Highway 17 Business in Murrells Inlet and another at the Garden City Pier, have gotten into quite the tussle.
Owners of the Highway 17 shop sued the franchisee they sold Garden City Pier location to, accusing her of holding their social media accounts and website hostage and damaging their carefully built reputation. The Garden City Pier location was also torn down by the Kingfisher Inn next door to be turned into a parking lot.
The drama has led to longtime visitors to the “Original” location in North Myrtle Beach to call Munafo asking:
“Are you still open?”
“I heard you closed?”
“Are you under new ownership?
Munafo is used to calls from confused customers, giving the businesses’ similar names. Usually, though, the customers are people who have never been to his shop asking if he sells cakes, a staple of other shops.
The history behind whether or not the three Painter’s shops are tied together is murky. Munafo’s father bought the North Myrtle Beach shop in 1999, whereas Steve and Ann Fairchild bought the two near Garden City in the early 2000s. The original owners are long gone.
However, for as long as Munfao and his family have been involved, he said the “Original” Painter’s location has been fully independent from the other two. To make it clear, Mantzanas even trademarked the full name, “Original Painter’s Homemade Ice Cream,” in 2003.
“We’re two separate businesses,” Munafo said. “And, we’ve heard nothing but good things about them.”
“We trademarked the name ‘Original’ and let the ice cream do the talking,” he added.
The ice cream even tastes different. The “oreo” flavor at each shops are different colors (chocolate and black for Garden City and white and black in North Myrtle Beach). The ice cream also had slightly different textures and levels of sweetness. (We won’t tell you which is sweeter. You’ll have to try them both to taste the difference.)
Munfao couldn’t tell you if his ice cream tastes any different from the other Painter’s, though.
He’s never tried them. Not once.
“We have nothing against them,” he said. “We just want people to know that we are the ‘Original.’ The one that’s been here forever. We welcome everybody to come see us.”
The most popular flavors are also different, in several emails listed in the Fairchilds lawsuit and in social media comments online Garden City Painter’s customers frequently said they loved the chocolate almond flavor. Munafo said his most popular flavor is butter pecan.
The Fairchilds did not respond to a request for comment.
But Munafo, the public face of the North Myrtle Beach Painter’s, isn’t concerned with his competitors. Other than the confused customer calls, those other businesses rarely cross his mind.
No, Munafo would rather talk about his love for ice cream, or how he was “destined” to be in this business. As a child, he would sing the jingle on “The Price is Right” while holding a spoon as his “microphone.”
“That’s what I feel made me destined for ice cream,” he said. “I was born for this.”
Destiny runs in the family, Munafo’s father, Mantzanas, was a commercial painter before buying an ice cream shop with “Painter’s” in the name.
Munafo loves to talk about all those famous visitors — Nancy O’Dell and Mike Love of the Beach Boys, among them — to his shop. Does he have a favorite celebrity visitor? It’s probably White, who he said visits the ice cream shop several times a year, almost every time she visits North Myrtle Beach.
“In my hometown of North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Painter’s Ice Cream, there’s a Vanna Banana Split,” she told Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak in a clip from the show posted on YouTube in 2020. “I’ve been going there for over” — she pauses — “a long time.”
White’s favorite flavor is maple nut.
“Vanna is like an aunt figure to me,” Munafo said. “One of the nicest people ever.”
Or, Munfao will tell you about his less-famous visitors, the longtime customers who are just everyday people. They came to the shop as children with their parents and now bring their kids, grandkids and great-grandkids with them every year.
Those customers are famous in his mind, anyway.
“I try to let every person that comes through here, get a piece of my heart before leaving, as I show them the love of the ice cream,” he said. “I try to give them something to feel good about themselves because I know that we shape people’s day.”
In so many ways, Munafo is the perfect ambassador for an ice cream shop. His personality is as sweet as his ice cream, and it’s easy to see how much he loves his business. On a recent visit, the place was practically spotless yet he still apologized for it not being clean enough.
And his efforts have been rewarded. His walls are not just covered in autographs from celebrities — the paint color practically disappears behind all of the awards he’s gotten for his ice cream. Though, one of his favorite symbols of the shop’s excellence is a 19-year-old copy of People magazine, when his Original Painter’s Homemade Ice Cream was honored as one of the best local ice creams in the country.
“As long as the people keep coming, we’ll keep serving them with smiles,” he said. “Our business has been serving generations from the great, great, great grandparents all the way now to the great, great, great, great grandchildren, and we want to continue that tradition.”
This story was originally published April 28, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "3 Myrtle Beach ice cream shops bear similar names. One wants you to know it’s the ‘Original’."
