Former owner of legendary Edinburgh ice cream parlour Mr Boni's dies

The former owner of famed Edinburgh ice cream parlour Mr Boni’s has died.

Lawrence Boni, who ran the iconic Edinburgh ice cream dynasty for more than 20 years, died on Wednesday, his son Josef confirmed online.

For decades Mr Boni’s was among the most successful ice cream businesses in the Lothians and were hugely popular in the Capital, offering a wide variety of different Italian ices.

The business was started by Biagio Boni, a young Italian who arrived in Scotland in the early 1900s. Biagio opened the Empress Cafe, which would later become Mr Boni’s, in Gilmore Place in 1910.

When Lawrence Boni took over in the 1970s, the family adopted the Mr Boni’s name for their growing empire and opened outlets at St Mary’s Street and Cockburn Street.

Mr Boni passed on the running of the business to his eldest son, Stefano, in 1999.

The award-winning company struck up deals with local supermarkets to sell their ices and secured commissions from visitor attraction Our Dynamic Earth.

Boni’s last ice cream parlour, the original Gilmore Place branch, closed at the end of 2002.

The late Lawrence Boni, formerly of Mr Boni's Ice Cream Parlour, with an ice cream cake which won him second prize in an undisclosed competition in February 1983.

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