WEST LEBANON — As Upper Valley ice cream shops polish their scoops and rev up their machines in advance of the summer season, two new franchises offering frozen sweets prepare to join them.

Cold Stone Creamery and its sister store, Planet Smoothie, are scheduled to open on Saturday, May 10, in a shared location at the Powerhouse Plaza in West Lebanon.

Franchisee Seth Cox sees the 10 Benning Street storefront as the perfect location for drawing in patrons from Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and the VA Medical Center in White River Junction as well as people who have come to West Lebanon to shop.

“We want to get everyone,” he said.

After moving to Woodstock a couple years ago, Cox and his wife, Dashia, briefly ran Soulfully Good Cafe on Central Street before selling the business in January.

Cox first became familiar with Cold Stone Creamery as a customer while he was living in Georgia. “(I) loved the brand there,” he said. Cold Stone will be his first franchise.

Even though Cold Stone and Planet Smoothie are chains, like Soulfully Good, this location will be “family-owned and run,” said Cox. Dashia Cox and the couple’s two oldest kids, both in their 20s, plan to help out alongside roughly 15 employees.

Both Cold Stone and Planet Smoothie will be open from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. on week nights and until 10 p.m. on weekends.

Founded by Donald and Susan Sutherland in Tempe, Ariz., the first Cold Stone Creamery opened in 1988. The business became a part of Kahala Brands, a holding company of fast food franchises, in 2007. Today, Cold Stone has more than 1,300 U.S. and international locations.

The store specializes in hard serve ice cream with flavors such as “Apple Pie A La Cold Stone,” a vanilla ice cream with cinnamon, graham cracker and caramel. Ice cream is made fresh each day from mixtures sent from a separate location, said Cox.

Other offerings include sorbet, sundaes, milkshakes and ice cream cakes.

Cold Stone tradition has often mandated that employees sing a short song when they receive a tip from a customer. But the practice has “faded out because a lot of kids don’t like to sing to the public,” said Cox, who plans to keep the custom optional.

While Cold Stone’s menu focuses on ice cream, Tropical Smoothie offers fruit smoothies, protein smoothies and smoothie bowls, which give patrons options “if they want to go healthier,” said Cox.

The first Planet Smoothie store opened in 1995 in Atlanta, Ga. Since joining Kahala Brands in 2015, Planet Smoothie now has 166 locations across the U.S.

At the moment, the closest Cold Stone is in Newington, N.H., and the closest Planet Smoothie is in Worcester, Mass.

The West Lebanon Cold Stone is just a five-minute drive from Ice Cream Fore-U, the ice cream spot near Home Depot on Route 12A that draws crowds every summer, but Cox said he isn’t worried about the competition.

“We always think about that, but I think that there’s enough people in the area. I don’t want to compete with them, I just want to get along,” he said.

Fore-U Ice Cream’s co-owner Meredith Johnson pointed out that Cold Stone and Fore-U offer “two totally different experiences.”

“Hopefully there’s enough room for both of us,” she said in an interview at the store.

Cold Stone and Planet Smoothie will be open year-round, said Cox.

Meanwhile, seasonal Upper Valley ice cream shops, such as Scoops in Hanover, have recently reopened their doors.

Fore-U Ice Cream will open on Wednesday, May 14, while Mac’s Maple in Plainfield will crack open its creemee window on Mother’s Day this Sunday.

Another Hanover storefront, Red Kite Candy, sells house-made ice cream year-round. Right now, Red Kite is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday through Saturday, but the store plans to extend those hours to 9 p.m. “before Memorial Day,” said owner Elaine McCabe.

The future of one Upper Valley ice cream shop remains a mystery, however. Dairy Twirl, located on Mechanic Street in Lebanon, was damaged in an overnight fire in the shop’s building on Jan. 9.

“We have been working diligently with the city and insurance company to determine the best course of action and timeframe for rebuilding and reopening,” said owner Cinnamon Murray in an email correspondence. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a date for reopening as of yet.”

Marion Umpleby can be reached at mumpleby@vnews.com or 603- 727-3306.