SLINGERLANDS — The proprietor of a popular local ice cream shop has seen a flood of donations to a GoFundMe page. From $5 to $500, the donations are to help pay for the medical bills of Robert Zautner, owner of Toll Gate Ice Cream in the Slingerlands.

His sister, Mary Zautner Smart, explained that Zautner couldn’t afford health insurance because he was using profits from the business to pay for expenses like supplies, payroll for his eight employees, and business insurance — not for his own paycheck.

The GoFundMe page was set up by his sister. On Monday, she told The Enterprise her brother was still very sick, but had shown improvement in the last 24 hours. He had a small hole in his small intestine for some time, she said, which caused diverticulitis and led to shock. He underwent surgery the morning of Jan. 12. Zautner Smart said her brother is expected remain in the hospital for some time.

Since creating the page on Jan. 12, Zautner Smart said almost $21,000 has been raised in less than four days. The goal is $50,000, but that’s because GoFundMe requires a goal to be set. Zautner Smart said she is not sure what the total expenses will be.

“Five, six days in intensive care be quite expensive,” she said. “Hundreds, thousands of dollars.”

Declining business

“Things were a little slower than they had been,” said Zautner Smart, of business at Toll Gate. brother’s business. Her brother had taken over from their father when he died in 2012, she explained, but the business goes back to their grandfather’s founding it in 1949. Her brother had worked there for over a decade before taking over, but, when business began slowing down, he tried to bear the losses.

Zautner Smart said she and her husband are not sure what the outcome will be for the business, which is currently closed. She and her husband both work full-time and don’t have the time to manage it, she said.

“We’re just trying to take it one day at a time, at this point,” she said.

Community spirit

Zautner Smart and her brother grew up in the Slingerlands and helped out in the ice cream shop as children. The shop has long been a community icon, as indicated in messages from patrons on the GoFundMe page.

“We lived on New Scotland Rd in the 60's and 70's and remember many a summer night the family walking home with creamy, melting ice cream cones,” said Linda Brown, “Sending healing thoughts your way.”

“My significant other and I enjoyed the Toll Gate in 1967 when we dated and have visited often again in the past several years after a gap of 50 years,” said Martin Demarest. “That it has remained unchanged in a changing world is a great testament to the people running it. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.”

Denise Throop Riedy worked at Toll Gate from the time she was 16 until her mid-20s, from the 1990s until the 2000s. Her older sister worked under Zautner’s father in the 1980s, and her father worked for Zautner’s grandfather in the 1950s. Throop Riedy worked for both Zautner and his father, Robert Zautner Sr..

Throop Riedy held the job through her time at Voorheesville’s high school and at Rensselaer Polytechnic University. She said that Zautner took after his father in being flexible with student employees’ commitments to academics and sports.

“Rob Senior was always cognisant and flexible with the high school students,” she said. “It was a great first job.”

She said she worked nights and weekends, and estimates there were about 30 employees in total at the store.

“It would be very busy,” she said. “You did see a lot of regulars come in.”

She added that parents would also bring their children after sporting events.

Warmer weather also drew in more customers, she said, as people sought the store’s famous homemade ice cream.

“The ice cream has always brought people there,” she said.

Throop Riedy believes that, as family-owned businesses declined in the 1980s and 1990s, people were drawn to Toll Gate because it hearkened back to the family-owned ice cream shops of an earlier era.

“It brought back memories,” she said.

Throop Riedy still visits the shop when she sees her family in Voorheesville, and she visited Robert Zautner Sr. when he was in the hospital before he died.

“He was like a grandfather to me,” she said.

Zautner Smart said she appreciates the generosity of the community that has supported the shop since the 1950s and now has donated thousands of dollars.

“It’s been amazing,” she said. “We can’t thank them enough.”