By opening a Gelato Picks gelateria after retiring from a career as an oil and gas executive, owner Dietmar Neidhardt said he hopes to encourage others to pursue new passions—even at an older age.
“I did nothing extraordinary, nothing somebody else couldn’t do as well,” Neidhardt said. “I wanted to prove that, even after 65 [years old], you could do and create something.”
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Neidhardt took online courses from Carpigiani Gelato University in Italy. Every Sunday, he said he would serve his Sugar Land neighbors samples of the gelato and sorbet he had made.
“I became the hero of the street because there was no restaurant open, no nothing open. People had nowhere to go,” Neidhardt said. “After about three weeks, [my] neighbor said, ‘When we get out of [the pandemic], you need to open a shop.’”
