COOPERSBURG, Pa. — He's hard to miss.
Giant Chip, the towering figure at The Inside Scoop ice cream shop at 301 N. 3rd St., Coopersburg, gets attention from those passing through Coopersburg on Route 309.
And from longtime "Muffler Men" fanatics.
Now, Giant Chip has gotten a place on PABucketList.com's 16 Quirkiest Man-Made Roadside Attractions list.
It calls him a "nostalgic figure, dressed in a classic soda jerk uniform with red pants and a white shirt ... welcoming visitors with a giant scoop of ice cream in one hand and a serving spoon in the other."
It adds "a whimsical charm to the shop’s retro aesthetic."PABucketList.com's 16 Quirkiest Man-Made Roadside Attractions list
It says he adds "a whimsical charm to the shop’s retro aesthetic."
Chip first touched down in the Lehigh Valley in 2017, after an international journey from a junkyard in Canada to a fiberglass expert, Mark Cline in Virginia.
Cline reassembled the mid-1900s statue.
Giant Chip co-owner Penny Caciolo insists her husband and co-owner, Tony, was the mastermind behind it all, and he even custom-ordered a giant scooper and ice cream cone for Chip — all without her knowledge.
"I think he has always had that in his mind, since a child, seeing them places," Penny Caciolo said. "I didn't know he actually acquired this, so that was a surprise to me.
"It actually just showed up one day, and I was like, 'What have you done?' ...It felt so obnoxious at the time, but he's great."
‘Pulling people in’
Naming the Muffler Man was a no-brainer, Caciolo said.
He's a striking resemblance of her husband's business partner, named Chip, and it's only fitting, given the ice cream shop's abundance of flavors with chocolate chips mixed in.
"It immediately showed me how much he was pulling in people."Penny Caciolo, co-owner of The Inside Scoop
Chip officially planted his feet in front of the Inside Scoop in December, nearly 10 years ago. That month is a "notoriously slow" period in the industry, Caciolo said.
"The timing actually ended up being good, because December is so slow for us that it immediately showed me how much he was pulling in people," she said.
"Because, really, December is just so slow, but my December numbers were the highest December numbers I ever had."
Is Penny Caciolo surprised by another spotlight on Chip? Not really, she said. But she said she had no clue he made the cut for the state's roadside attractions list until a friend sent the online link to her.
‘Worth a detour’
Chip has been featured in countless articles, TV segments and even YouTube videos.
He is on the Roadside America Muffler Men Map, after all — and apparently the only one in the Lehigh Valley and among just six in the entire state.
The website rates Chip as "worth a detour," with visitors sharing clips with the statue since 2019.
Only one other Muffler Man in Pennsylvania made the list: Cowboy Sam at the Cadet Restaurant in Armstrong County.
Other attractions on the list include a shoe house, bigfoot statue, flying saucer and a road sign sculpture garden.
Chip is popular enough that when the Caciolos decided to add a penny pincher souvenir coin machine to their 1950s-themed ice cream shop, a Chip coin had to be an option.
The couple had their fun with Chip during the COVID-19 pandemic, too, Penny Caciolo said.
She said they added a giant mask to the statue to make light of a difficult time for most. The mask is gone, but Chip did have a recent paint job, Penny Caciolo said.
While Chip is Canadian — he originally came from a gas station in Calgary, Canada, in 1960, according to the Inside Scoop website — and his residency status is unknown, with his fame and fresh look, it's clear he plans to call Coopersburg home for the long haul.
