Mad Maggie's Ice Cream

From: Mad Maggie's Newsletter
To: Mad Maggie's Newsletter
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:56:04 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: The Scoop" from Mad Maggie's Homemade Ice Cream

Greetings, and welcome to this week's edition of The Scoop, containing all of the dirty little gossip of Mad Maggie's Homemade Ice Cream.

This week's rainy weather has been a drag on our sales, but on the positive side, the store is looking pretty clean! My scooping team has learned to dread rainy days, as they know that it'll mean that I'll be finding things for them to clean while the customer traffic is slow.

Still, the new store continues to surprise me from a customer traffic standpoint, as even on the past few raw, rainy days, we've still done "OK" sales -- not stupendous, but more than I expect, and enough to keep me hopeful that we'll actually survive this winter.

The slower volumes have also given me a chance to knock more items off my "to do" list, which is slowly shrinking. A few more weeks of fall weather, and we may have to start looking for things to keep busy with!

Ice Cream Cakes

Our new location has plenty of room, and when I put together the business plan, I wrote that I thought we'd do a decent business selling ice cream cakes if we could put a display freezer in, so that people could "grab and go", rather than needing to pre-order every cake.

This has proven to be true, as our biggest problem to date has been keeping enough of a selection of cakes decorated and ready to go. It seems like if they're in the display freezer, they'll sell. I'm relieved, as the display freezer was one of the bigger equipment expenses, and I'm happy to see it generating sales.

I had hired a college student this spring who wanted to decorate cakes, and we paid for her to take the Wilton cake decorating course, and coached her to the point where she was making decent cakes at the North Reading stand. She was a somewhat slow decorator though, and seemed to have constant run ins with others on the serving team. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as the new store opened, and we really needed her to start cranking out cakes, she came in and quit on us, claiming that she found a job that was more in line with her college studies.

As disappointing as that was, especially after we'd invested a lot of time in training her, and given that she gave us no notice (and the fact that she's probably the only person who has ever just outright quit on us), it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

One of our team members from North Andover High, Carolyn, watching me fumble my way through decorating a cake one Sunday morning, confessed that she did a bit of cake decorating herself. And, in fact, had also taken the Wilton cake decorating course. I gave her a quick lesson on the nuances of ice cream cake decorating, and she jumped right in.

It turns out that Carolyn was underselling herself, as she has a real talent for decorating cakes. Her cakes make mine look like they were done by a grade school student, and she has a great eye for which colors will look good together. I can do passable roses, she does ones that look like they came off a live bush. She's just about completely taken over our cake decorating duties. And as a bonus, he's a very pleasant person, very dedicated, and a quick decorator -- all improvements over our failed previous hire!

Carolyn plays on the North Andover High field hockey team, so she has limited time to give us, but has promised that once her season ends, she'll spend a lot more time helping us keep that cake freezer filled. We're delighted to have found this unexpected help on our team, and happy as can be to have Carolyn helping us.

So, if you need a cake for a celebration, come by and custom order one, and we'll have Carolyn (or Maggie -- she still does her share) make one for you. Or just look in the display case, maybe she'll already have one there that meets your needs.

Disappointing News

As most of you know, we love to take a lot of photos of the happenings around the store, and have an extensive collection of photo galleries on our web site. Unfortunately, this month, the gallery is a little empty, as our digital camera disappeared from the store.

We had it on the front counter, on its printer dock, so that we could print out photos for any customer who wanted one. One night a week or so ago, a handful of teenaged kids were looking through the camera and laughing, but I didn't think a lot about it as people often like to look through it.

Unfortunately, the camera has not been seen since, and I'm pretty certain that that group of kids took it. I don't really remember what the kids looked like -- we get a ton of kids in the store, and remembering any one group is bound to be tough. And it's not like the camera was anything expensive, in fact it was a couple of years old, and we'd been thinking of upgrading it anyway. There were a few photos in the camera that I hadn't downloaded to the computer, so that was probably the biggest loss in my eyes.

Still, it's disappointing to think that someone, even young, foolish kids, would be so mean as to steal something like that. Like I've said before, we meet some of the best people in this business, but occasionally we get exposed to some of the worst as well.

So, You Want To Open An Ice Cream Store, Huh?

I'm continually meeting people who tell me they're thinking of getting into the ice cream business. I run a discussion group on Yahoo for people like me who run ice cream store, and there are always new members dipping their toes into the water to see if this is a business they'd like to get into. And I meet a bunch of people at the store who confess that they've thought about opening an ice cream store.

The comment that I (and other experienced operators...) always get a chuckle out of is when someone tells us that they want to open an ice cream shop "because it seems like an easy business".

Well, just for an illustration of how tough it can be to run a small business -- any business, not just an ice cream business -- here's a short summary of my day on Saturday:

6:15: Out of bed, shower, dress, etc.

6:30: Into the truck, trip to the post office to pick up this week's mail.

7:10: My big break of the day: Breakfast! I open and sort the mail while I eat, and some days even find time to sneak in a peek at the day's sports page.

8-ish: Arrive at the store. Check up on last night's cleanup job. Empty the mop bucket that someone forgot to empty, clean the front counter where a late customer must have dropped some ice cream.

Drag the pressure washer out of the basement, spend 30 minutes cleaning up ice cream spills and chewing gum off the front walkway. I try to do this once a week, but sometimes it needs to be done more often.

Put a coat of paint on a couple of pieces of trim that I need to nail up to put coat hooks up in the basement.

Pack the top layers on two ice cream cakes that need to by decorated by the afternoon, for pickup this evening.

Move the 20 or so tubs of ice cream that were made last night from the hardening freezer down into the walk in freezer -- 7 trips up and down the stairs!

9:00: Back into the truck, quick trip to the bank to make a deposit and to pick up change for the weekend.

Stop at the supermarket, pick up bags of ice, soda water, bananas, and a few other assorted supplies.

Quick stop at the hardware store for a few additional items I need.

10-ish: Back at the store, unload groceries, Need to make pie crusts for a restaurant we supply ice cream pies to, so whip up a batch and pack the crusts.

Put ice cream machine together, sanitize, and start making ice cream.

Fill pie crusts, place them in the hardening cabinet to freeze.

Do a quick ice cream inventory, and figure out what flavors need to be made today.

11:00: The girl who's opening shows up -- she's only been working for a few weeks, so she needs help to run through the opening checklist.

Review inventory -- Yikes, we're low on Coffee! Toss in a quick batch so we don't run out by the end of the night.

The window is surprisingly busy for early on a Saturday, and I need to keep jumping in to help out -- we find out that there's a soccer tournament being held down the street, and every hour we're going to get another flood of two teams. Yikes -- no one else is scheduled to come on until two o'clock!

Noon: My ice cream production assistant shows up, and I turn over the list of flavors to be made to him, and jump back up front to help out serving.

In a fortunate miscommunication, the girl who I thought was coming in at 2 o'clock got a message to come in at noon (I had told her to come in at noon on Sunday, she thought I said noon Saturday...) Great, Katie's an old pro, and she takes over helping out at the window.

12:30: On a trip to the basement, I discover that there is water dripping on the basement floor, apparently coming from the women's room toilet! Running upstairs, to find a customer exiting the women's room. "You're out of toilet paper, and when I flushed, the water shot out the side of the toilet" she reports. I take a quick look, and don't see anything apparent that's wrong. On a positive note, it appears to be the supply water that's leaking, not waste sewage!

Grab the mop bucket, and a roll of masking tape. Mop up the water on the floor, and tape a "Closed" sign on the door.

1:00: Continue jumping in to help out at the serving window, as the soccer tournament is proving to supply way more traffic than a normal Saturday afternoon in the fall. Wish I had known about the tournament, so I could have schedule another serving team member or two!

2:15: Put the second coat of paint on my trim boards -- will have to find time to put these up tomorrow.

2:30 Breakfast is a long way away, so I call across the street for a pizza for myself and the rest of the scooping crew, who continue to get flooded with customers from the soccer tournament every hour. We find a few minutes of slow customer traffic to wolf down a couple of slices.

In another fortunate screw-up, another team member shows up to work unexpectedly at 2:30 -- she signed up, but on on the wrong week's signup sheet. No problem, we can use her, so she jumps in to help.

3:00 Take a look at that leaky toilet. Looks like the plumber who installed it managed to mangle one of the rubber seals, so I take it apart, flatten out the seal, re-seat the tank, and reconnect the water supply. A test flush, and eveything looks dry. Thank God, no need to call (and pay for) a plumber!

3:45: Find a few minutes to open the day's mail, and to sort the bills into prioritized piles -- that one can wait, this one better get paid this week, etc.

4:00: My production assistant is ready to leave, but there are still several flavors to be made, so I tell him to leave the machine together so I can run through a few in my "spare" cycles.

4:45: Work through a few quick batches of Maple Walnut and Butter Pecan, which I know we're low on. Take apart and clean the machine, as I need to scrub it to remove any residue from the nut flavors.

6:00: The afternoon crew is leaving, and the night crew is replacing them. Check up on the shift-change cleanup, and make sure the night crew has enough change in the registers.

6:30: Night crew wants to order pizza, but none of them have a car, so I agree to run out and pick it up for them. Sure wish they'd all agree to ordering from the place across the street, rather than the place that doesn't deliver!

7:15: After the unexpectedly busy afternoon, I'm a little worried about our flavor supply, so I do another quick inventory. Uh oh. Looks like even with the batch I made this morning, we're going to run out of Coffee and probably Cookie Dough, Pistachio, and Pumpkin tomorrow unless I make more tonight. Put the machine back together, sanitize it, and start making more ice cream.

7:30: Something is wrong with the fudge warmer, as it's not pumping well. Take the pump to the sink, clean it up, brush out all of the parts, and reassemble it. Looks like the fudge warmer was turned up too high by someone, and the fudge has started to crystalize, so I toss out the jar in it, and replace it with a fresh one.

8:00: Someone wants to talk to me about a donation (the fourth request for one today.) I try to hurry them along with the promise of a gift certificate, but they still take 10 minutes of my time. Got to get the batch of ice cream out of the machine...

9:15: Finally done with the ice cream production. We might run out of Peanut Butter tomorrow, but we'll have to live with that... Break down the machine again, and re-clean and sanitize all parts.

9:30: Start helping with the nightly cleanup. Empty the trash cans, wash up the assorted utensils in the sink, sweep and mop the parlor and scoop room. Drag the trash bags out to the dumpster.

10:00: The last of the customers have been served, and we turn down the lights while the kids count up their tips, and I count out the register drawers. It's a pleasant, relaxing time, as the Saturday night crew is a fun group of kids, and there's a lot of good natured banter going back and forth as they all unwind from the stress of dealing with customers all night, and negotiate which fast food restaurant they're all going to meet at for a late snack. I'm trying to count quickly, as I know the restaurant across the street stops serving food at 10:30, and I'd really like to get something to eat.

10:10: The kids leave, and I rush through my final checklist -- registers cleared and turned off, windows and back doors locked, water off, all freezer doors closed tightly, no dirty utensils missed from being cleaned. I turn out the rest of the lights, lock up and head out.

10:20: Make it to the restaurant in time to see the last of the college football games, and to get a plate of food and enjoy a cold beer.

11:00: Back home, check the day's email, put the day's cash away in the safe for Monday's deposit, go to bed.

Sunday's not much easier -- it's the day I clean the soft serve machine, which is a rotten, tedious, two hour chore that has to get done. Though I *do* treat myself by sleeping in until the ungodly hour of 6:45 am!

So, if you're really thinking about starting a small business, read that list again and ask yourself if you're really ready to commit to that type of day. That's probably a bit busier than average, as I'm still doing a lot of the little tasks related to opening our new store, but it's not a lot more. And some days are even busier!

Real Life Blonde Joke

If you've read my past newsletter, I wrote about the constant work of running up and down the stairs at the new location. One night last week, I knew the tub of Coffee ice cream we were dipping was getting low, and that we'd need a fresh tub out of the downstairs freezer soon.

Always looking for ways to increase my staff's aerobic health (yeah, ok, I was tired...) I asked one of my fair-haired team members "Could you run down and check if we have another tub of Coffee in the freezer?"

Off she sped. A minute later, she was back, out of breath, and empty handed.

"Don't tell me we've run out of Coffee?" I asked, thinking that maybe I had messed up my inventory.

"Nope, there are three tubs there, all right!" she responded brightly.

I gently asked her if she'd go back downstairs, and bring one of the tubs up with her this time.

Got to be extremely careful the way you phrase requests to the blondes...

Flavor News

No new flavors to report this week, as we've been busy keeping our existing items in stock. We're starting to think of holiday flavors though, so will soon be ordering our egg nog base, gingerbread, and stocking up on peppermint candy for those Peppermint Stick ice cream pies - YUM!

I still want to take a stab at that Maple Cashew that someone suggested last month, so maybe I'll try to find the time for that one this weekend.

The one bit of news: As most of you know, we supply ice cream pies to the Horseshoe Grille in North Reading. I've suggested trying our Candy Store Floor flavor to them a few times, but we've never really thought that it would sell. Well, last week, buddy Ron from the 'Shoe said "OK, let's try the Candy Store Floor". Well, it's apparently been a hit, as I had to deliver another 4 pies to them last night. Glad to see our first trademarked flavor is a hit with them! If you're looking for a great meal at a place that also serves a great dessert, stop on by the Horseshoe this weekend, and tell them Mad Maggie's sent you!

Staff Profile

I've spent most of the newsletters this season writing about the team in general, so I thought I'd get back into the mode of writing about one or two team members per issue. So this week, I'll pick on our "sister act" of Ashley and Brittany, who are from Andover.

We've known older sister, Ashley, for a few years now, as she was in the same class as our oldest son, Mike, and she'd often stop by the store an ask about him. One night, Ashley had "little sister" Brittany with her, and I couldn't help noticing her, as she had the brightest smile you'll ever see, and positively glowed while laughing with her sister in line.

I spoke a bit with Ashley, and told Brittany what a great smile she had. About a week later, she turned in an application, and Maggie and I hired her, pretty much on the spot, since we knew her family, and were pretty certain that she'd be a great worker.

Brittany definitely fills a bunch of roles on our team. When I see her coming into the store I usually ask her "Which Brittany do we have today?", as it could be "Silly Brittany", "Happy Brittany", "Dancing Brittany" or even "Serious Brittany". No matter what mood she shows up in, she usually manages to keep the rest of the team in stitches, as she's a natural clown, and seems to enjoy playing the "dumb blonde" straight role in any of my teasing.

Despite her attempts to act dumb, we have reports from her family that Brittany is actually a very good student, and works hard to get good grades. She's also one of our hardest workers, as she's continually near the top of our weekly "hours worked" list, and despite being one of the younger members on our squad, I can already see her as a future team leader. She's also expressed an interest in learning to make ice cream, so I've started showing her how to make some of the easier flavors. I joke with her that "we normally don't let the blondes near the ice cream making equipment...", but she's actually picking things up quickly, so maybe it'll work out.

She's one of our most bubbly personalities, and does an outstanding job in taking care of the customers, and is a cleaning dynamo when it's time to close up the store at the end of the night. I wasn't wrong about her smile either, as I continually hear customers at the window (not just the males either!) complimenting her on her great smile and wonderful blue eyes.

We were so happy with Brittany that we went out of our way to recruit her big sister Ashley to come join our team at the end of the summer, and now the two of them are anchors for our weeknight shifts.

Ashley spends the day working with her mom running a day care for a handful of infants and toddlers, so she's told me that she loves working at an ice cream store, because after spending her day in baby talk, she gets to talk to adults! Ashley is a little older than most of the rest of the kids, and she's proven to be a natural leader. So much so that I promoted her to team leader just a couple of months after hiring her! She's been a real blessing in helping us keep the store staffed during this late summer and early fall season.

Ashley has the same striking blue eyes as her sister, and the same upbeat, bubbly personality and great work ethic. She plans to start attending U-Mass in January, so we might miss her for a few months, but I'm pretty sure she'll be back in the spring.

She and Brittany are continually tattling to me about whatever mischief the other has gotten into -- typical sisters trying to get each other into trouble!

All in all, Ashley and Brittany are exactly the type of fun, outgoing, hardworking personalities we look for in building our team, and we're extremely lucky to have them as part of the Mad Maggie's crew.

Newsletter Coupon

OK, it's "Rock, Paper, Sissors" time! Come to the store, ask your server to play rock, paper, sissors with you -- best two out of three wins!

If my kids win, you have to do the "Funky Chicken" dance for all of the other customers in line. If *you* win, your server will sing you a verse from the play "Titanic" (Don't laugh -- we actually have a couple of cast members from Andover High's upcoming production on the team!)

Just in case you *don't* happen to get one of them serving you though, we'll offer you this coupon instead: One Scoop upgrade, with any purchase. Pay for a small, get a big three scoop medium! Pay for a kiddie, get a small. You can follow the rest of the pattern here, right?

OK, from what I can see, I've written *way* more than enough for this edition, so that's it. If you want to hear more of my witticisms, you'll just have to come by the store and get an ice cream!

Thanks for reading!