The doors wouldn't close — and the ice cream was melting

01 · The situation

A Cold Stone ice cream shop had moved into a former Starbucks in a high-traffic Times Square-area location. The problem was simple and expensive: the entrance doors wouldn't close. In an ice cream shop, a door that won't seal isn't a nuisance — it's melting product and rising cooling costs, all day, through summer foot traffic.

02 · What we weighed

The doors were heavy commercial glass storefront doors, and the real culprits were below the surface: failed floor closers rusted out in their cement pits, worn hardware, and old locks at the end of their life. We could have patched a single closer, but a half-fix on doors that cycle hundreds of times a day in a flagship location wouldn't hold. The right call was to rebuild the openings properly — hardware, closers, and the cement that anchors them — so the doors close reliably and stay that way.

03 · The solution

We removed both doors and stripped them down: out came the old floor closers, the worn locks, and the tired hardware. We demolished and re-poured the cement pits that hold the floor closers, set new closers, replaced all the door hardware and locks, and reassembled both openings — leveled, aligned, and tested to close and latch on every swing.

04 · The outcome

The doors close and seal the way they're supposed to. The shop stopped fighting melting product and cooling loss and got back to doing what it's there to do — selling ice cream that's actually frozen. A full opening rebuild in a demanding, high-visibility location, done in one visit.