Ample Hills Ice Cream is a comeback brand. This Brooklyn based frozen dessert has had more spins and turns than a swirled cone. It was successful . Then it wasn;'t, Then it was. then another low point. Now' it's coming back, stronger and better than before.
Regular contributor Julia Moskin wrote about this remarkable company in today's New York Times Food section. The company was first started by Brooklyn couple Jackie Cuscuna and her husband Brian Smith. The original idea came about when the couple moved from their careers, she as a teacher and he as a B movie screenwriter. He was also an ice cream hobbyist with a dream. Mr. Smith hand cranked their product and made up the business as they went along. They finally opened a brick and mortar store in Prospect Parjust before Memorial Day in 2011. he had to close the sotre for a week after, being overcome with exhaustion and elation. Their ice cream Ample Hills , taken from another Brooklynite Walt Whitman's poem, the famed Crossing Brooklyn Ferry was becoming Brooklyn's destination ice cream parlor. Customers fell in love with such flavors as Snap Mallow Pop and Cherry Cola. It even caught Oprah's attention thanks to her friend Bob Iger,disney chief executive. He even enlisted the couple to make Marvel and Star war themed ice creams for their theme parks.
Anyone would think that their success would last. It didn't . The smiths failed.The costs of their expansions in 2020 swamped their revenues and in March 2020 the company had to be sold.Mr. Smith was heartbroken. Ten years of his life had been devoted to creating new flavors and making good and unusual ice cream. The couple declared personal bakruptcy and had to move to a smaller apartment. They worried what they'd do next. They enrolled in a pivot workshop held by the North Brooklyn chamber of Commerce which led them to whuskey wednesdays, a regular networking event held by Norm Brodsky. Mr. Brodsky was a high profile entrepreneur who could sympathize with th esmiths. His courier business created in 1979 went boom then bust in the 1986 stock market crash. Armed with new cash the couple (who also were the subject of a Harvard business course entitiled entrepreneurial failure) opened up the social in 2021.It's lack ofcustomers provided its a second bankruptcy thanks to opening it at the end of the pandemic.That they ae coming back in Manhattan and Brooklyn with new flavors lik e Morning In Paris that has ground croissant in it and bananpudding which has the ingredients of banana pudding.They want stores and parlors where people cna enjoy their ice cream and they can talk to their customers.
Ample Hills will be back, Loyal customers will return. It's due for a comeback and this time it will be stronger than ever.
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