S3E1: The end of the Social & Ample Hills: What We Lost and What We Learned

We're Jackie and Brian, and this is, as the ice cream churns. Together, we found at Amphel Hills Creamery, a little Brooklyn ice cream shop that grew into something bigger than we could have ever imagined. This is our story of loss and resilience, and the honest, sometimes beautiful, often complicated art of beginning again. And again, this season we catch you up on what really happened with the social and Amphel Hills and take you with us on the next leg of our journey. We're opening something completely new, ramblin' chick, a bold, unexpected concept for us and for the rest of the world. Our guide is our close friend Debbie Rosen. She's a therapist, not our therapist, but she has been helping us make sense of where we've been and where we're headed. Let's get started. Hey, Debs. Hey. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Good. It's been years since we met, and a lot has happened, and it really seems like a roller coaster between, you know, Amphel Hills and the social, having it and not having it. And I'm just wondering, how are you feeling at this time? It has been a roller coaster. I can't really put into words the feelings of highs and lows that we've continued to experience over the years. Brian and I spend a lot of time talking about it. We wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, dreaming about it, having nightmares, trying to dive deeply into what happened, what we are responsible for, what we could have done differently. So it's hard, and it continues to be hard. You know, some days are easier than other days, but it's still with us, I think. I just want to say, I think it's just such an important aspect of what it means to take risks, entrepreneurially, and to go for it, and all the things that have, you know, so much that people are inspired by, but there's another side to it, and because often, things don't work out the way you want them to. And what's admirable is that you've kept doing it. Yeah. I think that's true. I think that, thank you. I think for me, I'll just speak for me personally, I think part of what makes it so difficult to talk about is that it is deeply embarrassing. And I think for me, it's embarrassing because the listeners were here on this podcast, on episode, I don't know how many, and all of these episodes, we've brought the listeners along on this journey with us of exploration, of the rollercoaster of Amphel Hills 1.0, and the glorious heights that we met, and then the, and then losing it all, and the mistakes that we made, that nobody else made, but that we made, and I made, that led to losing it, and the learnings that we had from that. And so we brought those listeners along on that journey, and I think that there would naturally then be an expectation on the part of listeners. Certainly, there was an expectation on the part of Jack, and I that this time things would be different, because that's the way it works, right? You learn something, you learn from your mistakes, and then you don't repeat them the second time around, and then you have a happy ending. That's certainly the expectation that I had going into it, and I think that it's why it feels for me, so embarrassing to have to be back here again. Like, I don't want to be back here again, talking about this. I mean, I feel like I'm dragging myself, kicking and screaming to this discussion, because it's just hard, but it is valuable, for the very reason you just said, Debbie, that that is a part of entrepreneurship, and I think that at the end of the day, the path that we're on, that everybody's on, isn't always as linear, as we'd like it to be. We want a Hollywood story of a beginning in the middle and an end that's clear and straightforward, but sometimes there are more setbacks along the way, and sometimes we take two steps back before we take another step forward. And I just, that's what this is, and if we're going to move ahead again with another project, which we had, which we'll talk about some other time, and another episode down the road. We have to continue to be willing to look at the mistakes we made and learn. And I can verify before we get started, we didn't make the same mistakes this time around. We really did learn. We just made some new mistakes, which we'll get to. - You know, you brought up a good point about it not being linear, because even though there's these ups and these downs, there's both, and the successes and failures you can learn from both, and that the idea that when something doesn't work, you can focus a lot more on the failures, but it's not all that. What I'm wondering at this time is, if you could take us back to when we last met and kind of walk us through what happened. - Yeah. So the last time we met was January of 2022, and we had, had the social for six months, we opened in July of 2021. We were struggling because it was the winter time, but we were also struggling because COVID had not yet receded, and we had been hit with a couple of different variants. We were banking on the fact that we were going to have a bunch of parties, 'cause we had this big, beautiful space, and we were excited to really come back together after COVID in the roaring 20s and have a bunch of parties with kids, and that wasn't the case at all. People were masked and nervous, and so we were not doing great at that moment in time. - How many parties we have that January? - Like one, one, and they were all masked. It was so sad, it was like-- - It was Delta, there's Omicron, there was a reason why people were nervous, but it was really, it was tough, because an ice cream shop loses money in the winter time, and that was how we were gonna try to get through. We struggled, we limped through January, February, March, after we had spoken in the last podcast. We made it through to the warmer weather of April and May and June, and things picked up, but they didn't pick up the way that we needed them to make up for how bad that previous winter had been, because of course there's always another winter coming, just winter is coming, there's always another one. And so we could see in July and August of 2022 that we weren't going to make it through the following winter of 2022 and to 2023, that those losses would be too much to continue to pay the bills and that we'd have to shut down. And so we went to back to our investors, and we laid that out to them, and they didn't pause, they didn't hesitate, they supported us and they put more money into the business to allow us to get through that next winter. And I think it's important to note, because of all of the water under the bridge and stuff that happened that we'll get to, that when you start a relationship with investors, there's a lot of trust, maybe trust isn't the right word belief, I mean the investors absolutely are believing in you. And every investor we've ever met always says, "Oh, we're not investing in the idea, "we're investing in people." And they believed in us and we believed in them. And that's something that sort of mutual belief starts at the beginning and unfortunately can slowly fall apart and turn into something very different. - Right, I mean, I guess ultimately it's business in the end. - Yes, yes, it is. - Unfortunately, no, it's true, it is business. And there's a lot of mistake. - At this time, Ample Hills is open. I think everybody's struggling business-wise with the variance at that time. What was happening with Ample Hills? - Yeah, I mean, Ample Hills was open and we were excited from the beginning to take them on, when we opened the social, we were excited to compete with ourselves. We started to hear rumblings that winter of 2022, September, October, November, we still knew people on the inside that Ample Hills was struggling and that they might close their doors. And so by middle of December, maybe a week before Christmas, the news came out that Ample Hills had shut down and they had furloughed all their workers. And so our investors immediately reached out to them to the people that had owned Ample Hills at the time to see if they were interested in selling it and that we would buy it back, that our investors would buy it back. They weren't interested at the time. They said absolutely not. They'd closed down for a little while around Christmas when it was slow and they were gonna raise more money to help them out. And so that's all they were interested in. So we kind of put it in the back of our minds. It was kind of a neat little thought exercise. and exciting to entertain, but we had the social to run. - Oh, meanwhile, the social was like gangbusters. It had taken off, right? - Even though it was winter. It was like the COVID had finally started to recede. - That's right. Well, COVID had receded and we had booked like a ton of birthday parties, right? So all the anxiety around the first winter there had completely receded because everybody wanted to gather and they wanted their birthday parties at the social. So it was, I think we had like 15 or 18 birthday parties. - Yeah, that January, one year later, for 15 birthday parties, one year later. We hadn't done anything different. Like, you know, there was no marketing, there was no social media, there was nothing that we did that changed that narrative. It was really, you know, the quality of what we were doing, of course, you know, rose to the top, but it was really COVID receding and people feeling like they could finally pour out of their houses. So we were doing better in January and February in March of 2023 than we had done in like warmer months of like September and October of the previous year, even though it was winter because it was, it was just so, so good. - What's interesting is ample hills wasn't doing well at the same time that you were rising. So do you have any comments about that? - We don't take any pleasure in that. Oh, you know, I guess that would not be gracious of us. No, I mean, it was obviously really sad to see ample hills go away because we weren't sure that it would ever come back. And, you know, while there was certain joy in watching them stumble and fail, we had built that brand and created that brand. And so it's still hard to watch it not be there. And to be clear, they didn't reopen. January and February and March, we were doing gangbusters into April. Ampholies never reopened. And so sometime around April or so, the owners of ample hills reached back out or we reached back out to them. I don't really remember what happened. And they were interested then at that point and trying to sell it. And so it was, I guess it was May. - It was, yeah, it was May when we got it back. - Yeah. And so in May of 2023, our investors reached a deal to buy back the ample hills IP in about four of the shops for a fraction of what, you know, it had been bought out of the original bankruptcy. - I mean, this was a huge comeback story. There was a lot of press about it. What about you guys? What was going through your minds at the time? - I mean, it was amazing. It was overwhelming. The outpouring of support and love, it was incredible and it really did feel like that comeback story. And I wish, I wish, I wish that the story ended then and that was just it. And we could stop talking. Goodbye Debbie. Okay, that's the end of this conversation. I really do, because it was. It felt so powerful and overwhelming. - Yes, it was just an incredibly emotional experience to come back to where it all started. Our Vanderbilt shop, which was our very, very first location that we opened in 2011, which we still live, you know, only a couple of blocks away from is, we were buying that shop back. So I remember going into that shop before we actually reopened it and nobody kind of knew and I just sat there and just remembered all the great times that we had in that shop. Like, you know, our daughter's, you know, fifth birthday was there and that was the first birthday party we had, you know, one of the first birthday parties we had. And just remembering the kids when they were little and remembering the first time we had live music in the Vanderbilt shop and it was just all of those things remembering neighbors and just feeling, like an immense, immense feeling of gratitude. Like, wow, like we got this back. Like this is amazing and people were just so excited. Do you remember when we went to Prospect Park event like in the park, people were actually cheering because there was, there was an article that came out in the New York Times, like, you know, they're back. It was, it was such a feel good story. Yeah, some people like just happened to see us and recognize and there was this sort of cheer went up. And it was it, but, you know, I will say, at the same time, there was this sense of anxiety and a little bit of, more than a little bit of trepidation. And it was sitting there under the surface, even from the beginning, because it just didn't, something we were sort of pushing it down, this feeling of unease around it, because it didn't feel really like it was hours this time. And it wasn't something that we could feel like we could talk about in public or talk about to the press. But it was that, that was difficult. Is that because of the control or lack of control that the two of you had in this, in Amphel Hills? Yeah, good point, Debbie, that's right. I hadn't discussed that yet. So part of the deal in getting Amphel Hills back, our investors placed on the deal, was that they wanted to install a new CEO to run this new company, which would be four Amphel Hills locations and the social, as well, under one umbrella. And so I think it's important to remember that when we started the social, we had all four walls that we controlled. Everything inside the four walls of the shop we were given control of. And there was no CEO, because it was just a single store. Our investors felt, well, we're going from one shop to five shops overnight. And literally there were two or three weeks to open them and we can get to that. But it was a very quick, quick thing. And they wanted to have one of their own, sort of be in charge of the financial guardrails and be the CEO. And we agreed to that. Obviously we agreed to that, because we wouldn't have gotten Amphel Hills back otherwise. And I think that what is frustrating and hindsight is that we were, the real mistake what we made was that we were really blinded by this incredible desire to have that comeback story, to have that feel good story, to get Amphel Hills back, that we relinquished control. But we also sort of believed at the time, or we convinced ourselves that we believed at the time, that we had more control than we did, because of our role in the, in our role just in people's hearts and minds, that we were the ones who had founded Amphel Hills. And so we would be steering Amphel Hills, even though somebody else was named CEO. I think that speaking for myself, that's sort of how I felt. Oh yeah, I mean, there was a feeling I had in my gut, that I just denied. I was trying to push through that feeling and sit in the Vanderbilt shop and feel the good vibes coming through that we had originally created. But somewhere along the way, I guess just time and having lost it once and created this other thing and I don't know, it wasn't the same. Obviously, it couldn't get back that feeling of joy and excitement. That was, that was hard. I mean, you talked about initially that the investors believed in you and that you really were able to have a lot of control of the social and it sounds like at this point, there's a breakdown. Why did this happen? I just don't know how much you can talk about it. But yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's true. I think before we go on, it is important to note as a disclaimer that we have a non disparagement, agreement in place, and perpetuity. And perpetuity. And that, you know, I don't think anything we're going to say here is disparaging. I mean, I do still feel an appreciation for the fact that they invested us in the beginning. Yes, we obviously disagreed with them about many things and we can still talk about those disagreements. But it may explain why there's some humming and eyeing and dancing around certain things. I do think that, you know, it's important to note that I don't know if they really, if you ask them that they would say, oh, we, it's the trusted broken down at the moment of taking Amphahos back. I think from their point of view, they wanted to bring in a CEO that had a financial experience because, you know, if any listener listened to our podcast, the financial part of running multiple shops was what we struggled with. And so that part of me was happy to relinquish that bit of watching the financial guardrails to this other CEO. The problem is, as a CEO, doesn't just cover the financial guardrails of a business. They also set the tone for the staff. They set the mood. They set everything about the direction and the visioning of the company. And there wasn't any time. There was zero time. there was less than zero time between getting ampliles back and restarting ampliles and having people walk into all those shops again and buy ice cream to discuss anything relating to vision, story, messaging all of those things that Jack and I feel so strongly about There was just it was May the weather was warm and we needed to open to sell ice cream So I mean it made sense, right? It was just a fire drill It was a complete fire drill and so at that time what would you have liked to have happened differently if possible? I think the the thing that I most wanted at that moment in time was more time I mean I just we Were in a place in May once we got the place back We didn't have a place to make the ice cream So just taking us back the factory at ample hills was gone that had shut down That wasn't part of what the purchase of the new assets was the purchase of the new ample hills Getting it back was just buying back the intellectual property the name and Four of the stores, but not the factory because of course the factory If you listen to the podcast, you know that the weight of the factory was what sunk us the first time So the new investors that we had had no interest and we didn't have interest in taking the Factory back because we knew that was a challenge so but we also knew that there was no way at the social in the kitchen that we had at the social to make enough ice cream for the other Four shops of ample hills and there I mean there's just technically and Feasibly no way to do that so we had to go find another place to make the ice cream and we had this push You know from the investors and from the new CEO to reopen as fast as possible and we wanted to you know to be clear We wanted to open too. We didn't want to see the summer disappear We just felt it was more important to take time to think about the repositioning of ample hills Because you have to remember here at this point Emple hills had been through a lot as a brand it had lost its founders the first time around in the sort of second iteration of ample hills and then it went out of business and it had been out of business and hadn't sold a scoop of ice cream in six months because it had closed down in December of 2022 and this was now You know June a June May June of 2023 so nobody had bought a scoop of ice cream the shops were you know dusty and dirty and sort of felt old and still had Christmas decorations up like You know we were thinking like about rebranding a repositioning how we could retell the story Um, and so I think that Jack and I had a different idea of sort of how to reintroduce it But we didn't really get a chance to discuss that because literally every second of our time was focused on How and where can we make this ice cream and we just so happen to have friends that had a location that had a Factory space and they were moving from one location to another and we were able to just shockingly step into their space move some ice cream making equipment over there and make ice cream But it was truly this thing that sort of fell out of the sky and it still had lots of little pieces that had to be worked out But it had we not done that we had to go build out a new production space We never would have opened until late in the fall, you know So did you want to the ice cream to be the same as the ice cream from the social recipes or were you going to keep it different? No, I think that what we wanted to do all along and and what we ended up doing through much of that summer that we were back Was to do a Combination, you know, we sort of would introduce to the social some of ample hills most popular flavors And we would introduce to ample hills shops some of the social most popular flavors I mean one of the things that you know, of course was the uigui butter cake which was one of if not it was the most popular flavor And so we had made it the social flavor called uir and guir and so we would put both of those flavors in the shops And we would ask people to decide do you like uigui butter cake or uir and guir? So there was some fun things that we did there to sort of combine the two brands and to look at what The best things were yeah, so it was just the the speed at which we were trying to operate um and and Make the ice cream and try to get those shops reopen meant that we weren't able to sort of have those important conversations about branding and narrative and social media and messaging For me it was about coming back to this brand that we had created and it having changed slightly but bringing this other brand that we we created together and finding like, you know, the the synergy I guess of both of them and trying to create a new thing How the people within the company because we took back some older employees and we had Inplaced from the social and some of our employees from the social were Inplaced for ample hills. It was about gathering everybody together and creating a culture and a vibe that felt really good And it was really hard to do that because we were rushing rushing rushing to get everything open and kind of like pushing everybody to work harder and harder To get the ice cream made to get it sold and I guess I just wanted Like you said a little bit more time not a lot just a little and to be able to you know step back and really have a You know Conversation about it and maybe it was us being too precious about it at the time when I think back about it I don't know I think there was so many emotional ties to it that you know it it it probably was too precious At certain times like you got to be on it, you know, it's like okay Got to make money you got to sell ice cream in the the summer and you got to get this done Then we can figure out the rest later and that would have been fine too had we been able to do that But we we weren't you've mentioned that you had reservations red flags appeared god instincts And I'm just wondering why you ignored them this second time or yeah, I mean it was out of a place of Necessity really you can say oh you feel this way but we still have to Live in Brooklyn and pay our rent. We have two kids that are in trench in school We can't just up and move and start completely new lies. We had to figure out how to survive ultimately It wasn't because We didn't know that there was something a miss here Did but we had nothing from from the first bankruptcy? We had nothing but dead right and so We were not in a position of strength and we were definitely vulnerable and you know That's not an excuse, but it is an explanation for why You might you know push down Reservations you have because there is ultimately Money and food on the table that you can reach out and grab no, it's really it's really hard and people say oh You know you guys just keep persevering. We're like well, we don't really have a choice But to persevere we have to figure out how to get back up and how to do you know how to make a living ultimately You know as much as we didn't want to compromise on some of these issues We found ourselves compromising just in order to keep the lights on yeah, and it was an exciting opportunity that was presented to you Right, right as complicated right. It's not just one or the other was Exciting at the same time. It was necessary. There's if there's a lot of nuance here. That's hard to really explain and yeah I think in hindsight, you know, it's it's nice and easy to say well if we'd have just kept the social it was going gangbusters You know, we could have just grown the social maybe opened other socials let ample hills stay dead the way it was at the time And maybe things would have been different But I don't know that ultimately ultimately they would because the problems that we had and I think it is worth noting I think we do owe it to our listeners again this time around to explain like what happened and how you know how it came that we Left again the second time because it wasn't voluntary ultimately we You know winded up boxing ourselves into a corner because from day one we really didn't agree with The CEO and I don't think that it probably warrants a lot of conversation about the nature of those disagreements because Those are things that you know, I'm not sure we're comfortable going into for reasons we've talked about but just from a day to day point of view We disagreed with things small and things large little decisions staffing decisions bigger decisions vision decisions where we're gonna Go where what we're gonna sell the kinds of products all those kind of things and I think jack in I felt like we were Protecting the brand and protecting the spirit of the brand and if I'm gracious now I imagine what they felt you know on their side and the CEO side felt like they were protecting the financial Stability of the brand and financially protecting the financial guard rails of the brand and so So those things are not mutually exclusive, but sometimes they can certainly be in tension. And ultimately over the course of that summer, I didn't take long. June, July, August, September, we kept fighting. And at the end of the day, you know, our investors, I think we just, we had the opinion, Jack, and I had the opinion and the belief that at the end of the day, our investors would believe inside with the founders over the CEO. And at the end of the day, they didn't. And they made their decision then that they were going to stick with the CEO and that the relationship was unsalvageable and that we needed to delete. So they asked us to go in October, November, by November. Yeah. So it was just a very quick five months of arguing, could we have fought less? Yes. But I don't know that we knew how to fight less because this was the thing that we had given birth to ample hills. And so we did what we thought was the right thing to do every day. You know, it was in the short term, certainly not the right thing for our paychecks and our livelihood and taking care of the kids that we talked about because at the end of the day, they asked us to go. It kind of, you know, it goes back to what you were talking about in the beginning of this question, which was the vulnerability where you were, you accepted a situation I'm guessing or what I'm hearing from you that didn't give you much power to actually argue or have disagreements and still be okay, be able to work it out. There was such a, you know, discrepancy in power that, but at the same time, you were used to being the ones in control. And that's a hard, hard position to be in. Yeah, no, it's a hard position to be in. I think it's interesting because since then we've, you know, had to take other jobs and also not be in control, you know, and it's been, it's been another kind of a learning for us to see what it's like to be on the other side of, you know, founding, owning and becoming and being a leader. Now, we're watching other people as leaders, as founders or as, you know, owners and it's such a different place to be in. I just, I think that I think it's so different when we go in and consult or work for other founders or other leaders since then because it's not ours to start with. And so I find it to be, I don't know about you, but I find it to be so much easier to have those disagreements and those arguments knowing that this is not ultimately my vision. It's not my idea. It's not my baby. I'm there to sort of support and help with, with whatever the issue is. It's a very different experience than the one that we had allowed ourselves to get into. But ample hills, this had been our baby. And so now we were basically just saying, well, it's not real there are baby, but we're still trying to raise it. And that's real, that, that, that was untenable. But I think it's been exciting and rewarding to be a consultant and sort of work with other brands in a way to sort of help them with that. Can you tell, can you tell me more about what you both have been doing? Yeah. So since then, we've both been doing a lot of consulting and branding work, helping other brands, businesses figure out who they are, what the story is that they're telling, how to evolve into their next phase. It's been really rewarding because after years of building our own companies, we've learned a lot about what works and what doesn't, how culture, communication, storytelling can make or break a brand. And you know, it's been interesting to step into these worlds of other people having stewarded our own for so long to see things from the outside to help guide without owning it, like Brian said, ourselves. So there's definitely an opportunity to see it from a totally different perspective. Yeah. I will say that part of doing it though, and you know, I've also been working and consulting and doing ice cream, consulting and different things. But part of it is that that bug to create your own thing, it doesn't go away for Jack you know. And I think that it's heightened by seeing and helping other people on their own journeys. It's definitely, it's always been there. And it's been, it's now been two years since we lost ampli-hills in the social again, right? And in those two years, we've done a lot of this other work for other people and other brands. And there's still that sort of needling thing underneath as you're working for the other brands that like, you know, hey, like maybe there's another thing for us. So we definitely, we have something that we're working on and that we're excited to sort of share and move into the future about, but maybe we'll save that for another episode. What do you think? There's already been some press about Ramblin Chick. Yes. No. Mashburger chicken burgers. I think what I pulled up, Debson, it's Cracklin Chickens mash burgers. Okay. Thank you. How do you use the word cracklin? Yes. I've heard they're delicious. I can't wait to try them. But I think for the next episode, the first question I have is how do you pivot from ice cream to smash cracklin's mash chicken? Marigayce. This is a good question. Chicken to ice cream. Yeah. No. And there will be some ice cream at. I do promise, but yeah, we can talk about that next time. Okay. Sounds great. So good to see you. So good to see you, Debson. Bye. Bye.