Tears well up in the eyes of Alison Welch as she sits Wednesday afternoon in front of the Dutch Treat, the family business she has worked at since she was 14 years old. She has decided not to open for the season this year. The restaurant sits high on a hill overlooking Route 2 in Wilton. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

WILTON — The Dutch Treat, an ice cream and fast-food eatery that sits on a hill with a landmark windmill overlooking U.S. Route 2 and state Route 4, will not open this season.

That means no cruise-ins, craft fairs or other activities usually held there over the spring and summer months.

“After a long hard process, we have decided not to open this year,” Alison Welch of Wilton said Tuesday. “It was not an easy decision to make.”

Welch has run the business since 2007 for her mother, Sharon Rainey.

There are multiple reasons it will not be opening, she said.

The rising cost of food and other related expenses, including increases in the minimum wage, and getting and keeping employees for the seasonal jobs, are among those reasons.

“It is the whole business aspect,” she said.

Welch also has a full-time job at the Mt. Blue Regional School District in Farmington.

Teenagers and young adults typically work at the seasonal business. Teenagers need time off for sports and other activities, she said.

The Dutch Treat sits high on a hill off Route 4 in Wilton. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Sharon Rainey and her sister, Gloria, and their husbands started the business in 1963. Rainey and her husband, the late Robert “Bud” Rainey, later bought the business from Rainey’s sister.

Welch’s grandfather, Kenneth Foster, the namesake of Foster Career and Technical Education Center at Mt. Blue Campus in Farmington, bought the land decades ago. It was his idea to build an A-frame at the site after a trip to the Netherlands.

Welch started working at the establishment when she was 14.

The business typically opens in April and closes after Labor Day. Families have flocked to the site with children playing on the swing set, eating under a canopy at picnic tables or inside the windmill base.

The family has not made a decision about opening next year, Welch said.

The closure, so far, is just for this year, she said.