Greetings, and welcome to the final edition of The Scoop for the 2006 season! Mint condition copies of our newsletter have been known to fetch huge bids on Ebay, so make sure to print this one out on high quality paper, have it laminated, and store it in a safe place.

Our ice cream season pretty closely mirrors the Red Sox regular season. And like the Red Sox this year, we've had a disappointing year and it's obvious to me that our summer is over. Our weekday sales in September slow to a trickle, and the overwhelming thought consuming my mind for the month is whether we can get rid of all of the ice cream before we close.

So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish!

Well the store is closed for the season, and it was a tough one for me. This is definitely the off season that I've looked forward to the most in our four years of operation.

I spent the last couple of days packing up equipment and supplies, and stashing everything away for the winter. It's amazing the collection of assorted utensils, containers, tools, and other equipment that it takes to keep the shop running, and every piece needs to be thoroughly cleaned, sanitized, and dried before being packed away so that they don't corrode or grow a layer of mold over the winter!

As I wrote about in the last newsletter, there's a good chance that the store might not reopen in the spring, but for now, I'm proceeding with the thought that there's at least an even chance that I reopen. Again, it might not happen, but better to at least be prepared to reopen in the spring, rather than to make the decision now that we're done for good.

My sincere thanks to all of you who've supported and patronized our store for the year. I've met hundreds of wonderful, interesting, supportive, friendly people in the four seasons, and that's been one of the best parts of the business. (Almost makes up for the handful of rude, demanding, irritating customers who I've had to suffer through over the years. See the story below about one from this week!)

Offseason Plans

The question I get asked the most this time of year by folks at the store is "What are you going to do with all your time off after you close?" Well, I've got a few plans!

• This is the third year of my re-roofing project at home. I did the back and most of the front over the past two years, and have one small section to finish, so hopefully I get to that in the next weekend or two. As my neighbors can attest, there are plenty of other maintenance projects around the house that I've been neglecting, so I'll try to finish a bunch of them up as well.
• I've got cousins in Buffalo, NY, who I've been trying to get up to visit, and I'm hoping to take a weekend drive out to see them towards the end of October. Hopefully this upcoming weekend, I'm also visiting my aunt and cousins in upstate New York (Plattsburgh), as well, so it'll be fun to catch up with them.
• My Saturday nights often include taking in a hockey game up at the Tsongas Arena in Lowell. U-Mass Lowell usually has a competitive team, and plays some talented competition in the Hockey East league, so I'll catch a handful of these games over the next few months.
• I love to hike the trails around Andover in the fall. Last fall, I tried 3 times to hike the entire portion of the Bay Circuit Trail that runs through Andover -- from the Merrimack River in Tewskbury to my home near the North Andover line, about a 12 mile hike. Each time, something went wrong and I ended up cutting the hike short, but I'm determined to do the entire hike this fall!
• While I'm not planning to attend the National Ice Cream convention that I've attended in past years, the New England Ice Cream convention is in Hyannis this year in October, so I'll likely be attending that one while visiting my parents, who've moved to Falmouth.
• I have several other ice cream friends who have shops around the country, and I'm hoping to visit a few of them over the winter. A couple of them are in Florida, where my sister lives, so maybe I'll book a long weekend to drop in on them (and maybe get some sun on this pale old body!)
• I'll spend a lot more time reading during our off months. As many who visit the store might have noticed, I'll usually have a book in progress during the summer, and will sit outside when I need a break and read a chapter or two. Still, in the summer, I might take a few weeks to get through a normal sized book. In the winter, I'll usually go through at least a book a week, so if you have recommendations, send them along!
• There are still a lot of business records to catch up on, so I'll spend a lot of nights entering information into QuickBooks, and filing things away and getting ready for tax time.
• My Saturday mornings just about always include breakfast at the Lantern Brunch in Andover, or at Sunrise Bagels in North Reading, though I think I'll be getting there later now that I don't have to be up at 6am each weekend day! I also like to stop in at the Bruegger's Bagel in Andover on occasion, mainly to observe how poor their service is -- I tell all of my team members to go there and watch how rudely they interact with their customers (no greeting, no eye contact, drop the change on the counter, no thank you, 50/50 chance of actually getting what you ordered...who trains these people?)
• As regulars Marty and Sue know, my normal Saturday night dinner and relaxation spot during the summer is at the Horseshoe Grille in North Reading, one of the few places where I can eat after my normal 12 hour Saturday in the summer (their Pulled Pork Quesadilla is delicious -- one of my favorites.) Now that I might actually have time to make dinner myself, I'll likely be there a lot less frequently. Probably only on the occasions when Maggie is working on a Saturday night.
• I get to catch a lot more television shows once the store closes. While I don't watch many of the alleged "comedies" that seem to dominate the weekly ratings, I do enjoy "Lost" and "Grey's Anatomy" -- two of the better written shows on TV, IMO. And, after the new year, I'll make a point of watching "The Shield", and (my guilty pleasure) "The Apprentice", although that show might have run its course if this season is as lousy as last season's was.

Customer Submitted Blonde Joke

Looks like this might become a regular feature, as newsletter reader Annie W. submitted this one:

Why do blondes always have a big smile when there's lightning? Because they think they are having their pictures taken.

This Year's "Ugly Customer" Award

Despite all of the wonderful people we meet at the store, every year we seem to get one or two who stretch our patience to the limit. We have a fun time at our final team breakup dinner comparing notes to see which team member had to wait on the worst of these.

This past week brought us a new contestant: On the Friday night that I was scooping at St. Augustine's ice cream social, I had left Rachel and Lauren at the store for the start of our season ending sale. On this night, we were taking 15% off on the price of all hand packed purchases for take home.

Apparently, one customer, after being informed that her quart was 15% off, read the whole sign and noticed that the discount increased to 25% on Sunday. She decided that "Friday" is pretty close to "Sunday", and that she should also be entitled to the 25% discount immediately! According to the report I got back from Lauren and Rachel, her argument was "I can just come back Sunday and get 25% off, so why should I have to pay more today?"

When Rachel told her that it didn't work that way, she became abusive, cursing and demanding that she be given the bigger discount.

Now Rachel is one of our most pleasant and non-confrontational team members, and I'm sure this woman's tirade was intimidating to her. And she finally relented, and gave the woman the bigger discount. She did the right thing -- I wouldn't want her to have to accept any further abuse over such an insignificant amount.

Still, I sure wish I had been there for that one! As anyone who's a regular at the store knows, I'm pretty liberal about extending extra discounts to anyone who has a legitimate gripe with our products or our service. But, I'm also pretty stubborn in terms of not giving in to people who are abusive or who make unreasonable demands, and I definitely wouldn't have given in to this woman, especially after her attack on our sweet little Rachel!

Would this woman go to Filene's Basement, and say "That dress is going to be 50% off next week, so you should just give it to me for that same price today"?

On a quart of ice cream, the difference between 15 and 25% discount amounts to about 76 cents. It's amazing to me sometimes, how little it takes for some folks to let their ugly side be put on display!

Funny What You Can Find on Ebay!

Here's a funny little story: I was surfing around on Ebay this week, searching for some ice cream related stuff, and what did I come across but someone in Toledo, Ohio, selling one of our 2004 maroon T-shirts! How this guy got a hold of one of those is beyond me, but I thought it was funny to find someone so far away hawking our shirt!

He wanted $8.99 for it (plus $4.65 shipping...) and I almost bought it for the sake of the story, until I remembered that I've got about 4 of these same shirts sitting in a drawer at home.

Flavor News

I've done a terrible job this year of tracking our flavor consumption -- the inventory sheets are all stashed away, but unlike past years, I haven't been diligent in entering our production numbers into a spreadsheet so that I have accurate popularity numbers. One of those tasks that'll consume a dreary night later on in the fall!

Still, even lacking empirical data, we had a few new flavors this season that definitely were noticable as hot sellers.

Vanilla Caramel Turtle was probably the best new flavor we came up with. I had found these little chocolate covered caramel turtles at a trade show last winter, and knew they'd be great in something. I originally tried them in a butterscotch base, with pecans, and it was an ok seller, but nothing to write home about. A customer suggested adding them to our Vanilla Caramel, and BANG! -- that was the right combination. We've sold a ton of this flavor this summer, it's definitely our "Rookie of the Year" on the flavor list. (The caramel turtles are a tough item to obtain though, as there's about a 2 month lead time on ordering them!)

Our other mostly new flavor is Big City Brownie. I had made this as a flavor of the week entry a couple of times last season, but this year it was a regular menu item, and was likely one of the most popular new flavors. In the past, I've used pre-cut "brownie chunks" in this, but I switched this spring to cutting up fudgey brownies instead, and it makes a huge difference. One of the flavors I'll sneak a cone of to eat on my way to work on those mornings when I swing by the store to move ice cream tubs around early in the morning!

One of the things I'm proudest about this summer is the improvement in our sorbets. I've made them in the past, and some have been great, some not so. My March course at the University of Wisconsin on advanced batch freezing techniques seems to have paid off, as I think we made a lot of great sorbets this summer. Funny what a little expert instruction can do!

One of the things I've come to realize this year is that my past infatuation with always making our sorbets out of fresh picked fruit is silly -- there are several fresh-frozen or canned puree products that I can get that are much better than anything I can produce myself. So while I'll always try to make flavors like Strawberry sorbet from fresh picked strawberries when they're in season locally, several of our sorbets are now made from prepared fruits that I can purchase ready to use. I'll never use prepared fruits to save money, nor if I can make a better tasting sorbet from fresh fruits, but I've come to accept the fact that many of my suppliers can produce a better, more consistent product than I can make myself, so why fight it?

Staff Profile

Now that we're closed for the year, I don't really have anyone to pick on in this space, so I thought I'd write a little about my team in general here.

Those of you who read this newsletter regularly know how highly I think of the kids who work for me. When I started this business, I was warned by countless others who run similar stands that dealing with the teenagers was going to be the hardest part of the business.

After four years of operation, I don't know if I've been extremely lucky, or maybe I just look at our kids through rose-colored glasses, but in my opinion the exact opposite is true -- working with the kids is one of the most enjoyable parts of the business (most of the time, anyway... ;^) I feel extremely fortunate when I look at the group of wonderful kids I've had on the team over these years.

We've had right around 50 different members of our serving squad over our four years, and I'd guess that only a handful haven't worked out as well as I'd hoped. I hire most of our kids when they're 14 or 15 years old, with the hopes that they'll be on the team for a few years before finding bigger and better jobs to go on to. Watching these kids grow from shy, awkward, youths into confident, polished young adults over the course of a season or two is a really fun perk.

Perfect examples of this transformation are our five team leaders from this season -- Jenny, Mike, John, Katie, and Janae. Mike and John are the lone remaining members of our initial team, and they were both awkward and immature when they started. Jenny was the "little sister" of one of our original team leaders, and was so nervous her first couple of shifts that I thought she'd collapse. Janae and Katie were so timid during their first few shifts that I wondered if they'd be overwhelmed when they had to work a busy shift.

These five have been the heart and soul of the store this summer, and they've really done the bulk of the work in keeping the store running smoothly. Like all kids, they can do some maddening things at times, but all in all, they are cool under pressure, and I can count on them to do the right thing when it comes to dealing with difficult situations. I simply wouldn't be able to keep the store running without them.

Several of the other team members have also made amazing strides this summer, transitioning from timid, nervous fill ins into solid, trusted team members who I'm already eyeing as future team leader candidates. I'll keep their names out of this, but suffice it to say that I'm extremely thankful to have had the chance to work with these kids.

On several occasions, someone at the window will ask me if this kid or that kid is my son/daughter. I have two stock answers: I like to think of all of them as my "temporary" sons/daughters during the summer. And my second stock answer: No, they're not, but if any of their parents decide to kick them out, I'm going to be first in line to adopt them!

These kids' parents deserve a ton of credit for doing such a wonderful job of raising them. I'm really going to miss being around these kids day in and day out over the fall and winter.

Newsletter Coupon

No newsletter coupon in this edition, since we don't actually have anything else to sell at this point, but a promise for next year: I'll definitely fix our mailing list software to auto-magically send out the birthday coupons to anyone who's signed up and supplied their birthday!

I teach a programming course a couple of times a year for the others I work with, and this past season's class project was to come up with a programming solution for this problem. So, we actually have a skeletal version of the program to do the automatic emailing function, and I'll be working on polishing it up and putting it in place during the winter downtime.

Hopefully, that'll make the coupons go out on time, rather than counting on me having a few extra "tuits" in the summer, when I definitely don't!

Well, that looks like a wrap for this season, and I'm ready to reclaim some free time. I'll try to send out one or two offseason updates over the course of the fall and winter.

Thanks again to all of you for your support during this season. Hopefully, I'll hear from a few of you over the course of the off season, and maybe I'll even run into you around town. Have a great fall and winter!