Here are answers to some questions we get asked frequently:

Are you going to stay open all year?

YES! Now that we're at our wonderful, new location, we stay open right through the winter. We will likely close for a few weeks around the start of the new year, but just to recharge the batteries a bit, and to do some housecleaning.

Where are you located?

Our store is in North Andover, at 1025 Osgood Street, on the shores of Lake Cochichewick, and directly across the street from the Butcher Boy plaza. You can find detailed directions here.

What hours are you open?

Well, our hours vary throughout the year, but you can find our "official" hours here.
In reality though, I'm there most nights for up to an hour after our published closing times, and will happily serve you ice cream if you get there and I'm still puttering around.

Are you the same as Treadwell's, who used to be at that site?

Nope! The building is brand new in 2007, and we were fortunate enough to be able to lease it, as it's a great spot for ice cream!

Our ice cream is hand made on-site, by us, not bought from a distributor.

Don't you have a store on Martha's Vineyard?

No -- that's "Mad Martha's" you're thinking of. No relation to us.

Aren't you part of a big national franchise?

No again. You're probably confusing us with "Maggie Moo's", which is a big franchise around the country. We're just a tiny little mom & pop store, but we'll stack our ice cream up against theirs anytime!

What kind of ice cream do you sell?

We make our own ice cream, on site, using only premium ingredients.

Do you cater special events?

Yes! We love serving our ice cream at special events -- in our first few years we've done everything from small "Welcome Home" parties for returning servicemen to large sundae parties for over 500 attendees at various school groups and corporate functions.

Our mobile Mad Maggie's Party Wagon is available free of charge for large groups, and we can provide any level of service, from simply providing the ice cream to providing full staff to scoop, serve, and cleanup. Visit our Sundae Parties page for more information.

What kind of equipment do you use?

We use an Emery Thompson 20 quart batch freezer and a Carpigiani LB-502G batch freezer. Each of them has pluses and minuses, but we can make great ice cream with either one!

Who actually makes the ice cream?

I make a lot of it, but my super store manager, Janae makes quite a bit, and we have two or three others who pitch in to help as needed.

I'm very protective of the quality of our ice cream, so although a lot of my kids hint that they'd like to get involved in the production side, I'm very picky about who I'll allow to try their hand at learning this skill -- it's a very demanding job, requiring thought, focus, some aptitude, a dedication to quality, and even a bit of physical strength.

Being able to produce high quality ice cream definitely requires a craftsmanship that isn't easy to find. It's a real testament to these team members that I rely on them to handle this very important job, and I feel very lucky to have them working with me.

How did you learn how to make ice cream?

Many of the ice cream equipment manufacturers offer training courses on making ice cream. Carpigiani USA offered one of those that helped us the most. The instructor of that seminar (Debbie Lee, of Blue Ridge Ice Creams, Winston Salem, NC) was so good that we signed up for her one-on-one retail training.

We've also attended training at Penn State University, by Bill Meahger (Lakeside Creamery), Dick Warren (Four Seas), and Ray Sheehan (Avondale Dairy Bars), as well as courses from Malcolm Stogo's Ice Cream University, and food safety courses through ServSafe and the American Food Safety Institute.

But, as with anything, you learn by doing, and we've done a lot of that. We started out making test batches in our garage. We gradually refined our recipes based on the reactions of our vast array of friends and family who we enlisted as taste testers.

What type of ingredients do you use?

We use:

• Ice cream mix (15% butterfat)
• Flavorings from many different sources
• Inclusions from many different sources.

We try to produce flavors that remind us of foods that we love to eat.

How long does it take to make a batch of ice cream?

The preparation time to get the ingredients together varies depending upon the flavor being made (Vanilla is easy, Ultimate Chocolate takes a while, as we have to melt down chocolate liquor bits, etc.) But once the ingredients are poured into the batch freezer, it takes between 9 to 15 minutes (again, depending upon the ingredients and how they affect the freezing point of the mix) to turn the mixture into something resembling ice cream.

The semi-frozen (about the consistency of soft serve...) ice cream is then extruded into 2 1/2 gallon containers and cooled in a hardening cabinet at -25 degrees for at least 12 hours. This fast freezing reduces the chance that ice crystals will form, and is part of what makes our ice cream so smooth and creamy.

After hardening, the ice cream is like a block of ice -- not ready to serve! So we move the ice cream to a storage freezer, and leave it there for about another 3 to 6 hours before it tempers to the correct temperature to serve -- about 5 degrees fahrenheit.

Do you offer tours?

We don't have any formal tour program in place. That said, we've done tours with small school groups and other assorted friends, and we'd be delighted to share a peek at our production process with just about anyone.

Just contact us, either by , or by speaking with us at the store, and we'll let you know when a would be a good time to come by. Or, if you notice that we're making ice cream when you visit, don't be afraid to ask if it's possible to come in and watch. Oftentimes, if it's not "crazy busy", we'll be more than happy to let you stand inside and watch how we make our ice cream. And if we are busy, we'll let you know when would be a good time to come back to see the process.

What's the difference between Ice Cream, Sherbet, Sorbet, and Slush?

Different ice cream people use similar terms for different products, but there are a few basic definitions. First off, the the USDA mandates that a frozen dairy product (among other requirements...) must contain at least 10% butterfat content in order to be sold as "Ice Cream". After that, here's how we classify things at Mad Maggie's:

• Ice Cream -- contains at least 10% butterfat content. Ours contains 15% butterfat.
• Gelato -- an upscale product, containing roughly 6 to 8% butterfat, very heavily flavored, and denser than ice cream, as the goal is to whip less air into it. In ice cream production terms, this is a low-overrun product.
• Sherbet -- contains roughly 4 to 6% dairy product. The dairy is replaced with water, making this a lighter, cleaner tasting product.
• Sorbet -- Contains no dairy content. Ours is made using fresh fruit, though many people use cheaper extracts to flavor their sorbets.
• Slush -- in various places in the country, these are called Water Ices, Italian Ices, or simply Ices. Contains no dairy. At Mad Maggie's, our slushes are flavored with extracts, making them a cheaper product to produce.

Notice that the only difference between Sorbet and Slush is what we use to flavor them -- fresh fruit both costs more and takes a lot of time to prepare properly, so we normally need to charge a bit more for them. Other producers are bold enough to sell product flavored with extracts as "Sorbet", but we don't feel comfortable doing this.

(This also leads to a common joke among ice cream vendors: What's the difference between Slush and Sorbet? Answer: 75 cents a serving!)

Do you have frozen yogurt?

Yes, we do, although we don't make it ourselves -- this is the one item that we buy from a vendor, and we carry it strictly as a courtesy to those customers visiting with others who prefer yogurt for dietary reasons.

I'm on the Atkins diet. Do you have any low sugar flavors?

No, we don't. In 2004, we made a limited number of flavors from a low-carb mix that we've located.

I was very hesitant to try making these, as I thought they'd languish in our dipping cabinet for a long time and not be as fresh as they should be, and after an initial run on these flavors, they ended the season doing just that!

In 2005, we decided that it just wasn't worth the effort, the cost, and the loss of storage space for our premium ice cream flavors, so we discontinued them.

Who's Maggie, and why is she "Mad"?

Well, Maggie is my wife, and she helps run the store during day. The "MAD" part is actually the initials of my three oldest kids -- Mike, Amanda, and David.

We couldn't think of a good way of incorporating the initial of our youngest child, Kristen, into the name. So instead, we had her help us design a "kids" flavor and named it after her. That's where our "Kris Krunch" comes from -- it's mostly her creation, with a bit of direction from our adult taste buds.

Kris Krunch hasn't been the greatest seller for us, so we rarely make it, and we'll likely have Kristen "reformulate" this one a bit and come up with something that's more in line with our other great flavors.

Why do you keep running out of certain flavors?

Well, we promise, it's not intentional! The space that we're currently leasing looks big, but we really could use more freezer space. Because of our limited freezer storage, so we need to closely watch our inventories and try to forecast which flavors we'll be needing in the upcoming days. (You could say that we're forced to practice some of the "just in time" inventory management techniques that the Asian car manufacturers have brought to the US.) Unfortunately, sometimes we mess up (or we get an unexpected run on one of the popular flavors) and run out of some flavors.

We always try to restock as quickly as possible when this happens, but the reality of the ice cream production cycle means that it normally takes at least 12 hours for ice cream to "harden" correctly to be served. On the positive side, having this limited storage means that our ice cream is always fresh. And heck, if we're temporarily out of your favorite, try another one (or ask our staff to recommend one.) We've got plenty of great varieties, maybe you'll try something that will become a new favorite!

Another reason is that we like to make a variety of flavors, so we have several positions in our (limited) dipping cabinets that we dedicate to rotated flavors. For example, we always have two nut flavors available, but we rotate them among Maple Walnut, Butter Pecan, Black Walnut, and Pistachio. So, depending upon when you come, any combination of those four might be available. Or, if you happen to visit when we're about to "rotate", we could even have all four available.

Why don't you carry my favorite flavor?

We try to offer a variety of flavors to appeal to everyone. (A little disclaimer: I'm partial to coffee flavors and nuts, so we tend to offer more of those...) But we have limited storage and hours to make the ice cream, so we have to put a limit on the number of different kinds we have at any time.

That said, if you don't see a flavor that you really think we should offer, ask us! Maybe we'll make a batch for the next time you visit!

I've got a great idea for a new flavor -- will you make it?

Maybe! Send it to us! We can't try every suggestion, but we love to hear new ideas for flavors. In fact, over the years, these flavors were all added as the result of customer suggestions:

• 2006
  • Big City Brownie
  • Vanilla Caramel Turtle
• 2005
  • Black Raspberry Oreo
  • Banana Pudding
  • Brownie Blast
  • Mocha Chip
• 2004
  • Orange Chocolate Chip
  • "Killa" Cherry Vanilla
• 2003:
  • GrapeNuts
  • Vanilla Caramel
  • Chocolate Cookie Dough
  • Coffee Oreo
  • Coffee Chip

So send us your ideas! Who knows, maybe yours will be the next big hit!

Are you hiring?

Yes! Well, "Maybe", anyway...

We are normally fully staffed, but we like to keep a list of "on deck" team members for times when we need to hire more help. We look for people who are friendly, outgoing, well mannered, and hardworking, as we've found that these are the keys to whether someone will enjoy working with us. Up to date hiring needs can normally be found here, but you can always , or just stop by and talk to Steve -- introducing yourself in person is the best way to make your application stand out from the dozens of others that we receive during the course of the season.