Skipperdee's Celebrates Six Year Anniversary

Skipperdee's In Point Lookout NY Celebrates Six Year Anniversary

POINT LOOKOUT, NY — Skipperdee’s Ice Cream Parlor may feel like an old-school soda fountain, but the local ice cream shop actually started 6 years ago as a concept to fulfill the needs of the seaside community of Point Lookout, NY.

And that homey, nostalgic feel is exactly what founder Richard Zampella was after when he created the concept and decor for the thriving business.

“When I first came to Point Lookout, I felt that an ice cream parlor is part of every shore community experience and Point Lookout was void of that market need" Zampella said. "I saw an opportunity to replicate the memories & experience of my own childhood when I visited various beach communities as a kid.”

Now, Skipperdees, located at 26 Lido Boulevard (Next to the First National Bank of Long Island) in Point Lookout is celebrating its 6th anniversary, and despite the pursuit of selecting the finest ice cream flavors and ingredients available, the core of the shop has stayed the same — “Providing the best ice cream on Long Island in a family friendly environment,” Zampella said.

The flagship Point Lookout location stays open during the winter when it features homemade soups from the New York Soup Exchange in Garden City and offers a wide selection of homemade breads. In the fall, it celebrates with pumpkin flavors, and near Christmas, peppermint ice cream pops up.

Skipperdee’s is pleased to offer the residents of Point Lookout a family friendly establishment, that has become a social center for the children of the community and thanks our guests for the last six years of unadulterated family fun.

Happy 50th Birthday to Actor Chris Burke

Actor Chris Burke blows out the candles on his birthday cake at Skipperdee's in Point Lookout, NY

POINT LOOKOUT NY -- August 27, 2015 -- Busy Goodwill Ambassador Chris Burke is often seen appearing at various events for the National Down Syndrome Society, where he has been the Goodwill Ambassador since 1994 and is a valued member of the organization.

However, on Thursday August 27, 2015, he traveled to Skipperdee's in Point Lookout, NY to celebrate his 50th Birthday. The former Life Goes On star celebrated the night at a back table in the ice cream parlor and a group of teenagers appeared and sang "Happy Birthday" to Burke.

Skipperdee's Owner & Operator, Richard Zampella has been a long time friend of Burke's and said that he was "Delighted that Chris chose to spend his birthday with us at Skipperdee's"

Chris Burke is best known for his TV role as Corky Thacher on the hit ABC show "Life Goes On" and his recurring role as Taylor, an angel, on the hit CBS-TV show "Touched by an Angel."

Outside of his work on screen, Burke has been an advocate for people with Down syndrome. Burke has traveled the globe giving speeches, making appearances and motivating people to realize that a disability should not hold one back from achieving what they want in life.

John Mulholland & Richard Zampella Wrap Interviews in Detroit

Bill Leonard -- Son of Author Elmore Leonard Interviewed for the  (2015) Documentary -- The Dickens of Detroit

Writer/Director John Mulholland and Producer Richard Zampella are in Detroit, Michigan this week, filming Interviews for the upcoming documentary, Elmore Leonard: The Dickens of Detroit. The documentary explores Elmore Leonard’s life, his works and his place in the American literary pantheon. When Elmore Leonard died on August 20, 2013 at age 87, he left behind more than 40 novels and dozens  of short stories. By almost universal consent, he is the finest American crime writer in the 20th Century . Many critics argue that, if anything, the reference to genre slights his contributions. Martin Amis described him as “a literary genius,” and “the nearest America has to a national writer.”



Throughout the fifties, Elmore Leonard was an obscurity, toiling in a dying genre – the western – putting down first drafts on yellow notepads from five to seven in the morning, before laboring all day on the Chevrolet truck account at Campbell Ewald, a Detroit ad agency. By the 1970s, Leonard had turned to crime fiction -- set usually in Detroit or South Florida -- and the men and women who commit the crimes. And then, in 1985, featured on the cover of Newsweek, Elmore Leonard became the proverbial overnight sensation and an NY Times best-selling author. Leonard became a household name, profiled in GQ, Rolling Stone and The New York Times Sunday Magazine. Praised by authors and critics, Time Magazine dubbed him “The Dickens of Detroit.”

When he died in 2013, at age 87, he was still writing, still a NY Times best-selling author. Chances are you knew him, even if you didn’t know his name, by such film titles as: Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, Out Of Sight, or the TV series, Justified. As Elmore Leonard once said, “I’ve always seen my books as movies.”

John Mulholland (Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen) has been immersed in everything Elmore Leonard for a year, his writing – novels, short stories, screenplays, and films based on his work --  and much of what has been written about him over the decades. He is in the process of interviewing Leonard’s family and closest friends, along with a rich assortment of women and men who worked with Leonard or who have written about and studied Leonard.





Richard Zampella is a documentary film producer who has created content for Warner Home Video and Paramount Pictures. Among his production credits are producer of Sergeant York of God and Country, narrated by Liam Neeson. Inside High Noon narrated by Frank Langella and Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen narrated by Sam Waterston. The later was chosen by the New York Times as a Critics’ Pic in October of 2013.

Visit the Dickens of Detroit Website

John Mulholland & Richard Zampella Filming Documentary in Detroit

PR Log - Aug. 13, 2015 - DETROIT -- Writer/Director John Mulholland and Producer Richard Zampella are in Detroit, Michigan this week, filming Interviews for the upcoming Transmultimedia Entertainment documentary, Elmore Leonard: The Dickens of Detroit. The documentary explores Elmore Leonard’s life, his works and his place in the American literary pantheon. When Elmore Leonard died on August 20, 2013 at age 87, he left behind more than 40 novels and dozens  of short stories. By almost universal consent, he is the finest American crime writer in the 20th Century . Many critics argue that, if anything, the reference to genre slights his contributions. Martin Amis described him as “a literary genius,” and “the nearest America has to a national writer.”



Throughout the fifties, Elmore Leonard was an obscurity, toiling in a dying genre – the western – putting down first drafts on yellow notepads from five to seven in the morning, before laboring all day on the Chevrolet truck account at Campbell Ewald, a Detroit ad agency. By the 1970s, Leonard had turned to crime fiction -- set usually in Detroit or South Florida -- and the men and women who commit the crimes. And then, in 1985, featured on the cover of Newsweek, Elmore Leonard became the proverbial overnight sensation and an NY Times best-selling author. Leonard became a household name, profiled in GQ, Rolling Stone and The New York Times Sunday Magazine. Praised by authors and critics, Time Magazine dubbed him “The Dickens of Detroit.”

When he died in 2013, at age 87, he was still writing, still a NY Times best-selling author. Chances are you knew him, even if you didn’t know his name, by such film titles as: Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, Out Of Sight, or the TV series, Justified. As Elmore Leonard once said, “I’ve always seen my books as movies.”

John Mulholland (Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen) has been immersed in everything Elmore Leonard for a year, his writing – novels, short stories, screenplays, and films based on his work --  and much of what has been written about him over the decades. He is in the process of interviewing Leonard’s family and closest friends, along with a rich assortment of women and men who worked with Leonard or who have written about and studied Leonard.





Richard Zampella is a documentary film producer who has created content for Warner Home Video and Paramount Pictures. Among his production credits are producer of Sergeant York of God and Country, narrated by Liam Neeson. Inside High Noon narrated by Frank Langella and Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen narrated by Sam Waterston. The later was chosen by the New York Times as a Critics’ Pic in October of 2013.

Visit The Dickens of Detroit Website

Mulholland/Zampella Filming Interviews in Detroit for New Documentary

DETROIT -- August 11, 2015 -- Writer/Director John Mulholland and Producer Richard Zampella arrive in Detroit, Michigan this week to conduct interviews for Elmore Leonard: The Dickens of Detroit. Production still of Interview with Bill Martz: Best friend of Elmore Leonard in Michigan since childhood.

Elmore Leonard’s life, his works, his place in the American literary pantheon, is the subject of this new documentary. Central to the film, adding depth and resonance, is more than half-an-hour of never-before-seen interview footage with Leonard in which he analyzes and discusses how he started, why he wrote what he did, how he arrived at his lean, terse minimalist trademark.

See more at: www.dickensofdetroit.com

Richard Zampella: Owner & Operator of Skipperdee's

Richard Zampella: Owner & Operator of Skipperdee's in Point Lookout, NY

Richard Zampella has worked in the hospitality industry for over 30 years. He has managed the Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel and served as Food & Beverage Manager of the The Essex House Hotel on Central Park South. For 15 years he work 65 floors high atop Rockefeller Center at the Rainbow Room under legendary restauranteur Joe Baum. In 2010, he created the concept and design for Skipperdee’s Ice Cream Shop in the seaside hamlet of Point Lookout, NY.

Richard Zampella is also a restaurant designer that created the interiors and exterior of Brixx & Barley Restaurant in Long Beach NY. He is also responsible for the bar design for Heneghan’s Tavern in Point Lookout, NY as well as the tavern’s website.

In 2013 Zampella receive a Critics’ Pic from the New York Times as producer for the feature documentary Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen which is narrated by Sam Waterston. The film is currently available on DVD at Walmart, Best Buy and Target.

Visit Website: Skipperdee's

Director's Audio Commentary with Craig Gilbert

Transmultimedia Entertainment Records Directors Audio Commentary with Graig Gilbert & John Mulholland

Craig Gilbert and John Mulholland record Director's Audio Commentary for the Emmy Award nominated Margaret Mead's New Guinea Journal. The documentary film explores the work of Margaret Mead with the villagers of Peri, on the New Guinea island of Manus, one of the Admiralty Islands. Between Mead's 1928 and 1953 visits to Peri, the village changed drastically. The film, Written, Directed and Produced by Gilbert explores the problems encountered by a society that develops according to western models.

Craig Gilbert convinced Mead and his superiors at WNET, the local New York City affiliate of NET that there was an exciting story to be told about the Admiralty Islands in New Guinea, a story that would feature Mead as prominently as the Manus people. Gilbert and his film crew accompanied Mead on her return trip to Manus to document the changes that had occurred on the islands since Mead was first there in 1928.

Gilbert, was also the creator of “An American Family,” the PBS series that documented the Loud family of Santa Barbara for seven months in 1971 and was a premonition of reality TV. The Louds were the subjects of the first ever television reality show and Gilbert is credited as creating the reality television genre.

An American Family, broadcast on PBS in twelve hour-long episodes beginning on January 11, 1973. The show took viewers up close and personal in the home of the Loud family. Parents Pat and Bill and their kids became household names living in front of the camera for seven months taped the year prior to the broadcast. A record ten million weekly viewers were riveted watching the Loud family's daily activities. On camera, Pat asked her husband, Bill to move out, and Lance, the oldest son, was the first gay to come out on television.

Transmultimedia Entertainment Directors Audio Commentary for Margaret Mead's New Guinea Journal will be released on a digitally remastered edition in the Fall of 2015.
Produced by Richard Zampella