SUCCESS STORY By Steve Yablonski
Barlow’s Concessions LLC
It’s the busiest time of the year for Billy Barlow Sr. and his wife Lisa as they travel throughout New York state with their concession stand — they have been doing that for several decades now By Stefan Yablonski
B
arlow is a name known in the Oswego area long before Mayor Billy Barlow Jr. burst on the Port City political scene. His dad, Billy Barlow Sr., and mother, Lisa, along with their trailer have been fixtures at more than four dozen summer events for about four decades. Barlow’s Concessions has pretty much become synonymous with summertime. Barlow’s Concessions specializes in carnival foods — such as snow cones and fried dough — for festivals and other events. They are at the farmers’ market and Oswego Speedway just about every week. “I’ve been doing this since 1977. Started right here in Oswego; but we branched out a long time ago,” Billy Sr. said as he slaved away over a vat of boiling oil preparing fried dough for
the hungry crowd at Oswego’s farmers market recently. He started selling snowcones — “down on the corner down there,” he said pointing down West First to Bridge Street. “My father [Cecile] would pick me up from school, bring me down and sit me on that corner. Sold 25-cent snowcones. My father acquired a snowcone machine in 1977. We went all around town selling snowcones.” “I used to sell snowcones all day down on the corner,” he continued. “Thursday was my good day. I’d sell some and then I would wheel across the street in front of Tot and Teens and sell snowcones and lemonade all night over there and I’m still doing the farmers’ market to this very day — do the math — that is a lot of years!” There are no hi-tech snowcones.
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“The same snowcone I was selling back then, I am selling today,” he said. “We do fried dough now and fresh squeezed lemonade — started that probably in 1978.” Billy Sr. was working in the heat of the Oswego farmers’ market … and Billy Jr. wasn’t there. “He’s gone camping or something. I think I brought him up right so he wouldn’t have to be here in this heat,” the elder Barlow laughed. “This is a little harder work than a lot of people think. I’ve been at this a long time; and am going to keep going, might slow down a little.” “I don’t think my dad will ever retire fully,” Billy Jr. said in a separate interview. “He may scale back operations and do less events — but will there ever be a day he doesn’t do anything?
