S2E1: "Starting Over"

Welcome. We're Jackie and Brian, and this is As the Ice Cream Churns. Together, we found an ample hills creamery, one of the most beloved ice cream brands of the last decade. Then, we lost it all. We filed for bankruptcy a day before New York City shut down to the COVID-19. Now, someone else owns ample hills and we're out of work. But, we're ready to start over. Come join us for an exploration of what went wrong, and more importantly, what comes next. Our guides are close friend Debbie Rosen. She created the cracked cookies in her hit flavor, salted cracked caramel. When she's not baking, she's a therapist. We thought she could help us navigate these troubled waters. Let's get started. Hey, Deb! Hey! Welcome back, Jackie and Brian. Missed you guys. So good to see you again. Yeah, we missed you. We missed doing this podcast with you. It's been a while. A while and we have lots to catch up on. Why don't we start with the big news? Deb, the big news. We're back. This week, March 16th, 2021, we signed Elise on a new shop, a new location, a new company. And it was exactly actually a year to the day, to the actual day, which is bizarre. March 16th, 2020, when we filed for bankruptcy at Amphel Hills. The new shop is called the social, the social, with a lowercase CE capital S. That's right. Focus on the word social. Correct. It's in prospect heights, two blocks from the Brooklyn Museum, in the same neighborhood where we actually got our start. That's right. That's right. On Washington Avenue and St. John's. Well, that's definitely full circle. What's the significance of the name and what led you to choose it? Well, so I think when we first started thinking about this new company and we talk about it at the beginning of every podcast actually, if it's Jackie and Brian's or Brian and Jackie's, we were talking about perhaps calling this new shop, you know, Jackie and Brian's or Brian and Jackie's. But we couldn't decide which. No, we pretty much decided it was Jackie and Brian's. But it ultimately really just felt, I mean, part of, well, part of the reason why we were attracted to it was the B and J, the J and B, right? Ben and Jerry's. Which is why that was to Brian's point wanting it to be Brian and Jackie's because of Ben and Jerry's. Because there are idols and we, so there was there was there was a nod to Ben and Jerry's with the idea of calling it by our names. But then ultimately it felt just a little bit too self-absorbed for what we we ultimately wanted to create. Yeah, it just kept eating away at us that it would be called our names and it was just, you know, it was why we never called ample hills, Brian and Jackie's or Jackie and Brian's at the time. And so we hit upon the social and, you know, the reason for that is that ice cream socials were always such a huge part of the American past and sort of American popular culture. And that word itself social has so much power and so much beauty. It's it's it's almost like the perfect word for this moment in time. I mean, it defines sort of being human, the connections and the interactions that we have. And coming off of this pandemic in which we've had to socially distance ourselves from each other, we just felt like to call it the social was to sort of stand on the rooftops and scream, you know, no more. I mean, obviously we'll continue to, you know, apply by what Dr. Fauci says and the CDC. But we wanted to basically say, you know, come back together and be together and and and also ice cream socials as a as a specific entity. They were parties basically they were parties and gatherings but parties with a purpose. And so organizers would use ice cream as the means to gather people together to raise money for a local charity or a cause. Whether it was a barn raising or a schoolhouse or a library, it was an effort to use something, you know, they didn't have Brussels sprout socials, you know, they had ice cream socials and people used that sort of power and magic of ice cream to bring people together. And that was what we wanted to sort of capture with the name and also just that use of the word social as a noun. We use social as an adjective with social media and social distancing but the social as a noun is is a happening. It's an event and I think that that's what we really wanted. And yeah and so I mean, you know, one of the most important happenings is going to be once a month that where it's going to be baked into a churned into if you will. What the social is all about is a custom ice cream flavor. Once a month we'll be churning a custom ice cream flavor that will support a cause that'll be created and named by customers and that will serve in the shop for that month as well. And it'll benefit specific organization. I mean, again, like Ample Hills, this name brings in the community rather than Jackie and Brian. So it makes sense to me that that's what you came upon. Yeah, no exactly. I mean, it's it is that connection, I think, during this time, obviously, you know, during the pandemic, we've all felt a bit isolated. I mean, and then of course, we also lost, you know, a part of our lives that where there were, you know, major connections as well. And so, you know, it's just we all yearn for that. And that's what we're really, really hoping the social is, you know, going to do. It's going to bring us all back together in really profound ways because we've now all collectively experienced this sense of isolation and, you know, what it means when you can't be social and how important that really is right now. So now that you've picked the name, what's your vision aesthetically and culture wise for this shop? Yeah. So, I mean, the social is going to have more of an urban feel than say Ample Hills did, you know, with the, you know, rolling green hills, which is reminiscent of Ben and Jerry's, which we love, which is beautiful and postural. But this is more of an urban feel, more of a sesame street vibe where we're focusing on the people as opposed to, you know, the landscape essentially and the farm animals, right? And, you know, and the whole idea also is just that, you know, we're really into magical realism and that feeling of like, you know, walking through a portal and seeing, you know, a whole other world or perhaps you're hanging out on your stoop and you're dreaming of chocolate rivers and, you know, that, you know, that magical sense that we believe ice cream brings you, you know, into, you know, that you're transported to when you have like that flavor of, right? Yeah. I mean, it's the way ice cream can transport us back to our childhood and to that world of imagination and, you know, where everything's possible, where you can fix the world's problems or, or, you know, just have a absolutely magical afternoon. So we want to be able to capture that in the aesthetic and, and we've hired a fascinating and incredible new illustrator that's going to design the sort of murals and the flavor signs and the logo and the visual look of the shop. Yeah, she's got a real, you know, a vocative way of painting and drawing that that that Brian and I were very attracted to that feeling of emotion and sense of movement. So yeah, excited. Yeah, it's going to be great. I mean, it sounds new and exciting. What about the ice cream? Well, the ice cream itself, yes. So, yeah, I put on about 10 or 15 pounds and I'll say, it's really annoying. I've been making a lot of ice cream. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, it's exactly. It's all research. No, I mean, the fascinating thing about having, you know, run ample hills for a decade and having, you know, designed and created every last one of the flavors at the beginning. Obviously, towards the end, there were a lot of people involved and I wasn't in the kitchen or in the factory making ice cream on the floor. And I got pretty far away from the actual creative process of the making of Bye. ice cream in the formulation of recipes. And I think that, you know, as a company, and me personally, I feel like maybe we got a little complacent with just sort of the way that we thought of ice cream and whether or not we were working on the base recipes and always striving to do something different. And so when I went back, you know, in the fall, and I started to make ice cream again at home and thinking about new flavors for this new concept, you know, I started with just duplicates of things that I knew. And then I started to really question, well, does it have to be this way? Could I change this or that? You know, and like one of the things that, you know, I was excited to do was, you know, and it seems like a small thing, but we removed the eggs from the ice cream. So, you know, this is a technical thing, but eggs are, you know, in all the basic ice cream recipes that ample hills and it had a lot of shops. And I decided I wanted to make what's called the Philadelphia style ice cream, which is an eggless ice cream. And the eggs do two things. One is really, really great and one is not so great. And the not so great thing that eggs do is that they, they cloud the flavors of the rest of the milk and the cream and whatever flavorings you have. So if you remove the eggs, you get this pop of flavor that is obscured to some extent by the custard nature of the egg yolks, right? The great thing that eggs do is they provide texture. They're in a mulsifier. And so they give the ice cream a chew of body, a sense of their there. That's really hard to create when you don't, when you pull the eggs out. But I've been playing with all of those different, the ratios of the milk to the cream, the kinds of sugars that we're using, and the kinds of milk powder. And I've hit upon and found ways to make that ice cream have the same density and the same chew that we had before. But the flavors are now popping in exciting new ways. And so that's been really fun on a really specific, sort of scientific way on just getting back in and creating ice cream flavors like that. I mean, we've now got the 2021, 22 flavors that we're going to open the new shop with. And we've been playing with them. And over the coming weeks and months, we'll roll some of those out for you and share some of them. I'll just, you know, do you want to tell anybody about any of that? Well, I first just want to say something about his chocolate ice cream. So I'm not a massive chocolate ice cream fan. I'm just, you know, that's not my thing. My favorite flavors that we made were Uigui and pistachio. But anyway, he made this chocolate ice cream and we tasted against a couple of different brands. I'm not going to mention who they were except one perhaps might have been a recipe that he created prior to the social. And I mean, it was amazing to me how incredible this chocolate was, how much better it was than anybody else's chocolate, both on like a density level that you're talking about, but on a flavor level that you talk about like transporting you back. Like I literally had to like make him take the pint out of my hand and put it back in the freezer because I was going to eat the whole thing. And again, I'm not a chocolate person. So I was just like, anyway, so that's my, it's called our basic chocolate flavors will be called chocolate fudge. And we used to call it dark chocolate. But I really wanted to capture that feeling that, you know, when you know summertime and you get a big slab of fudge at the fudge shop, I wanted that in an ice cream flavor. How Brian, do you plan on keeping connected to this process and not get away from it the way you did with ample hills? That was a good question. I mean, I just think it's important to, I think because it happened before, it's not going to happen again. And it just isn't a side. I think about a company like Graders. Graders is in Ohio. And they're a hundred plus year old company, six or seventh generation, all been in the same family. And for decades and decades, they stayed just very centrally located in Ohio. They have 30 or 40 shops. But now their pints in the last five to 10 years can be found all around the country. But as they grew and they start and they make a ton more ice cream, then we did even at the end of the ample hills. They never built out a giant factory like we did and changed the process by which they made the ice cream. I'm moving to what we call the continuous freezer operation. They still, they still, they still, a hundred years later, make ice cream two and a half gallons at a time. They just do it with 30 or 42 and a half gallon machines next to each other. It's insane. But they've done that because they didn't want to change the way their ice cream was made and their connection to it. And so to me, I'm going to sort of use that as my, you know, model moving forward. So I hear there's going to be doughnuts. And I'm wondering if you could tell me about that. Yeah, so I mean, we just felt like we wanted to, you know, change, to change it up a little bit and not just have ice cream. And, you know, one of the big reasons was, you know, at ample hills, we opened it what noon. Yeah. And, you know, we just, we wanted to be able to open earlier in the day and, you know, sell coffee and doughnuts. And then, you know, in my point of view, even more importantly in the afternoon, to take that doughnut and put it underneath a scoop of ice cream and pork hot fudge. And whip cream over it and have like a signature doughnut Sunday. Yeah. I mean, I think it also comes out of like the fact that like, there were, there are a couple of like inspirational, you know, doughnut, you know, companies that we, you know, I mean, I, you know, with fan fan aside, because I love fannie, gerson's doughnuts, don't even get me wrong. I love, love, love them. But they're, they're, but they're complicated. And we can't do, you know, complicated doughnuts and ice cream at the same time. But just a simple cake doughnut, a simple apple cider doughnut, I mean, warm is just like heaven to me, absolute heaven. And so, you know, I mean, Brian's been working really hard also at, you know, making those doughnuts. Mm-hmm. I've been doing a lot of frying of doughnuts. Yeah. I haven't got that mastered yet. I can say, but we still got another three or four months before we got this. Yeah, he's close. So close. I'm his biggest critic and, and he's close. But no, he's not yet. We have not recorded for six months. And I'm just wondering, you know, during that time, personally and professionally, what's been going on. I mean, I obviously know what's happening now professionally, but there's a trajectory here. Yeah. I mean, I think the last time we recorded and the last time we, you know, put out a podcast was just about the time that we had to file personal bankruptcy. And that was, again, based on the massive amounts of loans that we had taken out and personally guaranteed for ample hills. You know, there's still, there's still debt in ample hills that we personally are viable for. And it's really been a hard time for us. It's been challenging. There are some really dark days, you know, just seeing what was going on with the company that we created too and still living in Brooklyn and being within a, you know, 10, 20 minute walk of each one of those shops. And it being a really hard, hard time, I think. Just to, you know, continue to be here, you know, and not having a clear path forward at that point. And just grieving the loss of, you know, again, it was just really, really morning and grieving the loss of a part of our lives, you know, that we were hoping to, yeah. I mean, I hear the grieving part, did you both take time to unpack the relationship that you had with the business and ample hills and think about what you wanted to do going forward? Oh, yeah. I mean, I, it was, we did. We spent a lot of time trying it. Yeah, I think you, you know, maybe more than me. I was ready to like, I mean, just in general, I was like, let me pour ourselves back into something new. And if we could have opened a new shop a month after we lost ample hills, though I just want to say that's kind of like jumping into a rebound relationship, which crashes and burns. Yeah. Yeah. And I see it. And it's so interesting, right? Because the way I have like approached relationships is like, I still keep things from my previous relationships in boxes. Okay. All right. I'm not going to like seriously, but it's true. Yeah, okay. Next question. No, but I would just say that, you know, I think in hindsight and in retrospect, the timing of opening the social is perfect. It's been a year. We gave time to it, but at the time, we did the last podcast, we had told people, I think at the end of that podcast, that, you know, we would be back in a couple of weeks. We hope to with an announcement because at that time, we were, we were days away. We were convinced we were days away from signing a lease on a new location in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn and we had fallen in love with this space. We'd fallen in love with the landlord. We spent months trying to negotiate this space and, you know, we were just, we were so excited about it and I, and I, it's still hard now to understand really what, what happened, but basically, you know, the lawyers got involved and they ended up being some things that just couldn't be worked out and the deal fell through. But we spent, I don't know, three or four months, you know, going down that path that, you know, I think, you know, in hindsight, it was probably part of the process we needed to do to distance ourselves from the immediacy of losing ampli-hills before, before opening. But that was a pitfall along the way. Yeah, I mean, it was, and it was, but it was also another devastating loss. It was quick, but it was a devastating loss because I was just like, oh my god, you know, we just lost, you know, this company and now we kind of were pouring our emotional energy into this new space. This, we got that, we got very attached to and then it fell through last minute and, and it really hurt. And I was like, wow, this is, this is, this is like, you know, a big lesson. This is a little bit of salt in the wound now, but like, it forced us to say, okay, you know, it's, you know, we've got to get over it and move on. You know, there's not much else we can do except, you know, pick ourselves back up and figure out another, another, another space. And with this new space that you're talking about, did you have as much emotional attachment to it or was there a lesson in the fact that it, you put so much into the other one? Not at first. In fact, the space was available back when we were obsessed with this other space in Park Slope, you know, I mean, and I remember seeing pictures of it then and I was just like, yeah, you know, but because, no, I absolutely not. Now, I mean, we have the same connection to it, but it just, it took a little bit of time to do that. And I think that, I mean, look, you have the idea of you can't get connected to a space. I think is a little bit of a simplistic way of looking at it. I mean, I don't think you can allow a connection to a space to have you make bad business judgments like maybe we did at Amphololes with that beautiful house out in those feelers in California, but you do have to love a space. You have to pour yourself into the space because customers can tell. I mean, you know, if you're just opening, because otherwise you're just a chain, you're just a McDonald's or a Burger King. I mean, like you, you do have to love and care and believe in it. You do. I mean, they have to check certain boxes, obviously, and financially, you know, that was what we did wrong with that space in LA. But, you know, this space at first didn't do that, but then it just so 100% does right now for, you know, I mean, definitely check the financial box, which was like, you know, really important. And one of the exciting things that the seventh avenue location in Park Slope would not have allowed us to do, that this new space on Washington does is it allows us to have a show kitchen, a kitchen that is very much in line with the original Vanderbilt Avenue location at Amphololes where we made ice cream and people could watch us make ice cream while they stood in line. This is going to have a kitchen that's about twice that size, but it will be a fully on display for people to see and for kids to look into. And I just think that's something that, you know, I really do think is important. I mean, both to my mental well-being to not be in a basement, making ice cream, but also to the customer experience of sort of seeing the narrative. Yeah. You know, all this is going on during the pandemic and you've had a lot of time to think about what, you know, how you wanted to pivot. Did you always think Brooklyn was the place for you to open another shop? No. I mean, I say no. I mean, I, you know, there's some, there's some marital conflict there. I think that when we, you know, came through and we were doing the podcast, one of the exciting things about it was some of the folks that got to hear the podcast and reached out to us. I mean, the support that we've had within the ice cream community and the sort of wider community has really been really powerful and has kept us going in a good way. One of the folks that reached out to us crazily enough is from a company in Pennsylvania that had an ice cream company and they were looking for help in growing it and building it into something, you know, wider and further than the rural area that they were in. And so they had reached out to us and we were suspect because, you know, that was a huge thing to move to Pennsylvania, but we thought we'd go and drive and enjoy a pretty afternoon and meet with them and we did and we really fell in love with them and and their ice cream shop and the area and we went back and boy for, you know, a month or two. I mean, we spent a weekend. We took the kids there. We saw the schools that they would have gone to. You know, we ate at the restaurants and you know, I was ready to do it because it was in some of those dark days before we really had a plan or any sort of financial means with which to open a new business and the pandemic was raging and I just, you know, I grew up in South Florida and I loved the idea of a pool in a backyard and grass to roam in and all that and, you know, it was, it was, it was tough because I think I was ready to do it and to go and sort of take on this other business and use the tools that we that we had. It was, it was, look, it was really alluring. It was so, it was so affirming honestly to just to have people, you know, really, you know, care about us, you know, just and put their faith in us and want us to be a part of their business which, you know, after all, we'd been through was, was personally for me, you know, I, you know, I'd just been grappling with self-worth, you know, over these last, you know, and just, you know, worth and, you know, lots of different ways, I guess. But so having them reach out was just wonderful and then building this relationship with them was wonderful too and, you know, trying on living in the rural, you know, parts of Pennsylvania was interesting for me but I think that's where it stopped for me. I mean, it was hard, you know, because I knew Brian really was attracted to that lifestyle and for, for the kids as well as myself, I think we're just so, we're so Brooklyn, we're so like New York City and, and it, and it, and it felt sad to me. Honestly, the biggest part was just feeling sad about leaving Brooklyn, having seen all these people, you know, make a massive exodus especially at that point, you know, and, you know, everybody knew that school was going to be remote so they could go anywhere they wanted to and it would be an easier transition and I just, it felt wrong, it felt bad. Yeah, no, I mean, I, I felt that too but I just, I mean, I felt just like I wanted this escape hatch, you know, to this, you know, not that I would just have my feet kicking up and drinking margaritas by a pool but it just, it did feel like an escape from the some of the urban chaos of that but, you know, on the other hand, you know, it was, what was eating away at me too was just the idea that it wasn't, it wasn't ours, it was, you know, was somebody else's ice cream company and, you know, no matter what kind of imprint we could put into it, I wasn't sure that we could be successful with our creative energy not trying to be in conflict with that and so at the end of the day, Christmas time came along and I got Jackie a mug, a coffee mug, I got her some other presents too but she got a coffee mug that said, what? That, well that's true, we had the bankruptcy but, Brooklyn forever, a Brooklyn forever coffee mug and so we just said, you know what, we're going to do this. and you know, a hell or high water will figure out a way to stay in Brooklyn and rebuild. - Okay, so you turned down Pennsylvania with no official plan. I do see a pattern of following your instincts despite the fact that it may be a harder road. So what was the plan at that time? - Well, I'm not sure that we had a plan specifically what we figured we would do was we would go to friends and family and try to cobble together money to open up a new shop. - Yeah, well, we had cobbled together some of that. - Yeah, you know, $10,000 at a time here and there and we had put together about half of what we needed to open a shop and we figured, okay, if we've got half, we can get a lease signed and use that momentum to try to cobble together the rest of it. But we didn't know that we could really get there but we just believed that we would just keep trying and we would keep at it. And then, you know, I think we you were. - So I was, you know, I mean, I was still kind of going through, I'd mentioned before, like this feeling of like worthlessness, right, like just that we had failed as business people. And so I was like, okay, you know, I need to start to figure out what we did wrong and what, you know, what we're gonna do better this next time before we can kind of move on. Like that was really, really important to me. So I just started pouring over all of these business books. I mean, I'm still pouring over them, actually. But a lot of them, you know, I would just, you know, be researched and I'd be up late at night and I'd be on Instagram and in Facebook or wherever and just, you know, reading various people's recommendations. And at one point, I think I was up at like three in the morning and I just couldn't sleep. And I was scrolling and I saw this opportunity arise which was to be a part of this, you know, pivot group. It was free and anything free at this point in our lives is really quite wonderful. And it was, you know, it was being taught by a, you know, two-season business people and a facilitator who was really, is really wonderful. And so I started that pivot course which, you know, ultimately the facilitators introduced us to, you know, another, it was four entrepreneurs, right? And it was about, you know, taking, you know, entrepreneurs and trying to figure out what's the mindset of an entrepreneur and how do we, you know, pivot in this time period, right? Everybody's looking to basically do something new or to figure out how to do something they really want to do. And so anyway, one of their associates and friends and mentors was this very seasoned entrepreneur who they had, you know, offered to introduce me to mentor us, you know, and to just go to speak with this person and get some advice about what we wanted to do. - Yeah, I mean, so we met him in Brooklyn at the first time and, you know, completely under the auspices of just talking through where we were at in life and what our process was. And, you know, and-- - I think at the point when we met him was when we were considering the Pennsylvania, right? - And we sat there and we talked to him about Pennsylvania and he was, he looked at me and he said, like, well, you know, 'cause we talked about how we were gonna go to Pennsylvania and then we were gonna come back to Brooklyn, you know, and, you know, two or three years and try to start up something new. And he said, well, if you're gonna go to Pennsylvania in order to come back to Brooklyn, why don't you just stay in Brooklyn? Like, what's the point of going to come back? - That's right. - And it was such a silly, simple kind of question, but we didn't really have an answer for it other than, you know, ease of life. And he said, well, you know, that's fair enough. I mean, I get it. Like, if, you know, you just want something that is easier, that's okay. But, you know, as you said, like, you know, we've rarely picked the easy path and I just, that really helped crystallize for us this sort of desire to not just choose what felt, luxurious or easier and try to stuff it out. And so we met with him a couple more times and it was really helpful and engaging and interesting. And then, you know, we got a call from him. And, you know, at this time, we were still trying to, you know, cobble together the money. And he just said, you know, that he talked to a partner of his and the two of them that wanted to come in and invest. If we would, if you know, if we would have them and, you know, and he was interested in putting up all the money to open up this new shop. And, you know, we would have creative control of the, you know, the day-to-day, you know, creativity and business. - Yeah. - But more importantly, he would be there as, you know, a financial guard rail and somebody with all of this entrepreneurial. - Yeah, I mean, and he also went through a massive bankruptcy. - Oh, that's right. - And so, so there was that. I mean, and that was, I mean, that was actually part of the reason why, you know, the facilitators of this pivot group had wanted me to meet with him because like, okay, well, we know this guy and he went through this intensive, but, you know, he's come back, you know, and you can come back too. And it's just like, okay, you know, yeah. I think that's why he was really taken by us and our story because I think he saw in us something of him in his younger days and some of the mistakes that he made. But then people gave him a second chance and he, you know, built, you know, big businesses after that. And so, you know, I really, it certainly is not, you know, one of many, many, many reasons why things went south in Amphal Hills was, you know, 'cause we didn't have enough people around us, so long with, you know, our own boneheaded decisions, but, you know, that had entrepreneurial experience. We had a lot of investors around us who had a lot of investing experience, but not entrepreneurs who had built other businesses. And so, you know, the board now is gonna be made up of four of us, you know, Jack and I and these two other people and both of them, that's all they've done is they've just built businesses and successful businesses and run them. And so, we feel just incredibly grateful for them and for their excitement and energy and trust in our process. And I think that, you know, over the, you know, we're just, I mean, we're just so excited about what's next. And so, you know, I think that over the coming weeks and months, I mean, we're recording this here towards the end of March and we're hoping to open the shop at some point this summer and hopefully in July. And so, over the coming weeks and months, we'd like to record some new episodes if you're game, Debbie. - Of course. (laughing) - And, you know, walk people through the actual journey of the how-to. I mean, you know, some of the boring stuff of talking to contractors and architects and, you know, designers and just the building out of the shop and the designing of the more flavors. And so, I think, you know, that's the plan. - Yeah. I think it's great. I definitely look forward to see how everything unfolds. - Thanks, Deb. Cool. - Yeah, thanks. We're looking forward to it. We're excited and in the journey, even though it's basically 10 years later, from the first journey that we took, it's, you know, we're doing it with much more experience and a different view. But I don't think that it's any less scary or a little bit, maybe a little bit more scary, though. I'm gonna tell you that because-- - But it's exciting. - It sounds like you're in tennis up in ways that it wasn't before. - 100%. - Yeah. - Yes. - And tennis are up. - Well, we'll see you soon then. - Okay. - Thanks, Deb. - Bye. - Thanks, Deb.