Mister Softee opens first Oakdale storefront, marking Suffolk milestone
Oakdale got Suffolk’s latest year-round Mister Softee stop at 4538 Sunrise Highway, where Selo Artas turned a brand he once could not afford into a storefront.
Mister Softee opened its first Oakdale storefront at 4538 Sunrise Highway on July 1, giving Suffolk County its latest year-round soft-serve stop and the fourth Long Island brick-and-mortar shop for the truck brand. The opening extends a Suffolk rollout that began in East Islip in March 2025, continued in Center Moriches, and added Miller Place as another announced location before Oakdale came online.
For owner Selo Artas, the shop carries a personal arc that reaches beyond novelty. Artas said he remembers not being able to afford a Mister Softee cone after moving to New York from Turkey and paying for school, and nearly 11 years later he is running a Mister Softee storefront in Oakdale. Town of Islip planning records list the project under Selahattin Artas, tying the shop to the municipal approval process behind the Sunrise Highway opening.
The move also marks a shift for a brand built on trucks, not counters. Mister Softee says it was founded in 1956 in Philadelphia by William Conway and James Conway, has been headquartered in Runnemede, New Jersey, since 1958, and remains a family business. The company describes itself as the largest operator and franchisor of soft ice cream trucks, with about 350 franchisees running 625 trucks in 18 states, and its official app still centers on finding trucks and arranging parties. That truck-first identity makes a fixed storefront notable, especially in a market where families can now count on a year-round stop instead of waiting for a seasonal route.
The Oakdale shop also fits Suffolk’s appetite for recognizable, family-scale food brands that feel local as soon as they open. Nearby residents quickly took to social media with excitement about having a permanent soft-serve option on Sunrise Highway, where the brand’s familiar blue-and-white name now comes with a front door. In a county where Mister Softee has long been part of summer street life, the Oakdale location turns a passing truck visit into a retail destination.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
