Samantha Keeton, owner of Sweet Sam’s on Route 66 in Waynesville, began selling ice cream in 2019 out of an old-fashioned tricycle food cart. “We started out to sell five ice creams a day, and now it’s way past that,” she says.
The business took off. In 2021, she opened a small shop called Gypsy Sam’s Sweet Treats, and in 2025, when she moved into the historic Rigsby house, she renamed her business Sweet Sam’s on Route 66.
The Rigsby house was originally a rough-hewn log cabin built in the 1870s by local Judge Vadover Berry Hill. In 1924, it was bought by Claude and Eva Rigsby, who made it into a four-bedroom, two-story home, adding a gas station next door in 1927 to serve travelers on Historic Route 66.
Now it is home to snacks, treats, and homemade fare. Samantha has expanded to serve breakfast and lunch.
While the menu has changed, the Rigsby house is “pretty much the same,” Samantha says. “You could close the restaurant today, and it could be a house again.”
• 103 North Benton Street, Waynesville • Sweet Sam’s on Route 66 on Facebook
This article was originally printed in the July/August 2026 issue of Missouri Life.
