Bath — The offbeat tale began when a stranger walked into Daryl and Kathy Brenner's ice cream store in Bath last summer.

"He looked like he was a TV reporter," Daryl said.

Their customer wasn't a news broadcaster — it was Tom Izzo, perhaps one of the most recognizable faces in East Lansing.

"I was sitting there starstruck," said Sarah Brenner, the couple's daughter and a 2002 MSU alumna.

But tell that to Daryl, a man who prefers boxing gloves over basketballs.

And just like he does with most of his customers, Daryl pulled out a few jokes, telling Izzo his frozen custard was "the best thing you'll put your tongue on," and trying to charge the basketball coach for napkins.

In Michigan, almost 800 stores sell ice cream — from gas station convenience stores to Dairy Queens — but few are run like Kathy's Pier Delight.

Here, the jokes run freely, and no conversation topic is taboo.

"My dad always likes to tease the customers," Sarah Brenner said. "He talks about anything."

He isn't afraid to bring up politics or hallucinogenic drugs, or stick with less controversial subjects such as the history of Bath Township.

"It's a serious financial investment for us," Daryl said. "But I don't think it's a serious attitude. You need to have some fun."

A rocky road

There are no customers standing in line, no ice cream dripping from cones.

Instead, there are counters to be scrubbed, curtains to be washed and a frozen custard machine to be cleaned.

It's Saturday afternoon, less than a month before Daryl and Kathy Brenner will reopen the store for a second summer.

"It's got to be manicured," Daryl said. "It's a lot of work, and there's only us."

But the husband-and-wife owners squeeze in time to work on weekends or evenings because they both have regular, full-time jobs to pay the bills. The couple lives in Bancroft, about halfway between Bath Township and Flint.

"There really is no typical small business owner," said Michael Rogers, vice president of communication at the Small Business Association of Michigan. "When they're starting out, a person may continue in whatever job they have and work on their business operation part-time."

Daryl, 57, has his own testing company for 16-year-olds and for school bus drivers to get certified on the road.

Kathy, 55, works as a secretary for a school district in Flint, so she can spend the majority of the summer months in the store.

Memories of their favorite custard store near Detroit and a little entrepreneurial spirit were enough for the Brenner family to start Kathy's Pier Delight.

"We all wanted to be entrepreneurs of some sort — that was in the '60s," Daryl said. "You either work in a car factory or run your own business."

The plan was to open a party store, selling cigarettes and alcohol, but there was "bad karma" to it, Daryl said.

Instead, the couple fell in love with an abandoned taco joint located on Park Lake Road in Bath.

What made the restaurant unusual was the building didn't touch land — it was built entirely over the water on a pier.

"It was totally rotted out, ready to fall into the lake," Daryl said. "You could see through the floor into the lake."

In the wintertime, ice fishers appeared on the lake, and when the days grew long again, fishing boats occasionally whizzed by. The Brenners decided the location on Park Lake Road was too good to pass up, so they purchased the property in 2002.

The Brenners would need nearly 14 permits to build their store, and a six-month construction delay only made the process more frustrating, Kathy said.

"If it had been just me, the building would not be standing there," she said. "I would have given up."

In Bath Township, most business owners can obtain permits and open shop in two or three months. For the Brenners, it took almost four years.

"The building site had a lot of hurdles to get over," said Sandy Bara, the township's assistant zoning administrator. "It just took a long time."

Bara said that was partly because the Brenners needed permission from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to build because the ice cream store literally was located on the water.

In 2005, Kathy's Pier Delight, just less than 500 square feet, was completed.

All the two entrepreneurs needed now was the perfect recipe for frozen custard.

"We went to Chicago. We went to Milwaukee," Kathy said. "We traveled all over trying to find this custard."

The secret ingredient?

"Egg yolks," she said.

But even as the pieces seemed to move together, the business didn't always run smoothly — like during their grand opening on Labor Day 2005.

The chocolate custard machine broke, so the Brenners handed out vanilla ice cream cones for several hours.

"In your first year, it's a little bit trying," said Susan Mesack, administration secretary for the Great Lakes Ice Cream and Fast Food Association. "If you don't live in that individual community, it's a little bit trial and error."

The organization helps ice cream entrepreneurs plan their stores by offering advice on a building's layout and how to get permits.

But in order to be successful, store owners need to be passionate and motivated.

"You have to do all the legwork yourself," Mesack said. "It's harder to do it on your own."

A retirement plan

Six years after the Brenners first saw the dilapidated Mexican restaurant, they have turned it into their own.

Kathy's Pier Delight, tucked among residential houses on a curvy road through quiet Bath, is easy to miss.

There aren't any busy intersections nearby, and the Brenners don't advertise.

When the ice cream line gets backed up, Sarah Brenner helps out — it's small-town business at its finest.

Someday, the Brenners say, they'll retire from their careers and run their store throughout the year.

"It's been hard because they both work full-time jobs," Sarah Brenner said. "They would love to be there year-round, but it's just not self-supporting yet."

Until then, the couple will sell ice cream on the side.

And, on this Saturday afternoon, as the sun shines through the windows, it's a reminder to the Brenners that summer is coming.

They better get ready.

"You know what I need you to do, Daryl?" Kathy calls from behind the counter where she's busy cleaning for the store's reopening.

She's about to name a cleaning item she needs her husband to find.

"Go home and eat?" Daryl quips.

It's not exactly the answer Kathy is looking for.