Thursday, May 27, 2010

Progress!

Afternoon, everyone. It's a bright, sunny day outside. I'm pleased to announce that all our major equipment is now taken care of. I just need to pick up a couple minor things like a microwave and a blender and we'll have all our appliances. My goodness but we just did out part to stimulate the economy. I still need to buy lots of little things like office supplies and cups and napkins and smallware like that, and some decor, but all the big stuff that makes the store work is wrapped up. I've got a couple new pictures. The first is the techinical drawing showing our sign in place on the store. Sorry it's not a good picture. Bad lighting conditions.


Construction continues at the store. The exterior walls have the sheetrock up, and the interior walls are mostly framed. You can actually see the layout of the store a bit now. Here's a picture of Amber, looking back into the semi-private seating area (with the bathrooms behind). The restaurant going in next to us just finished putting up the plywood exterior of their walls. It looks like most of the seating will be on the side opposite us, which is fine.




My next mountains to conquer are the small supplies purchases, hiring the staff for the store (any takers?), buying and setting up the sound system, and designing our menu displays (any graphic designers interested in giving them a bit of a jazzing up?). I also need to find an artist to paint a small mural on a wall above some cabinets. I've seen some samples from a number of artists locally; if anyone knows any good (not too expensive) artists who would be interested in painting a fun little mural for us (I already have the content and style basically worked out), drop me a line.

I'm going to be spending a lot of time in Boulder this next month, working with the stores up there, making sure everything is ready and we've got all our procedures figured out and making sure employee training goes well. As far as I can tell, everything is on track. I've been reading through all the manuals for the different parts of the business. I'm eager to get all the little prep work out of the way and get out there and start making and selling ice cream. Speaking of which, I have a number of distributors I need to call to set up our accounts.

Before I sign off, I'd like to take a moment to say a few words about our coffee roaster, Colorado Coffee Merchants. Eric, who owns the business, used to be a firefighter, and roasting is basically a hobby that grew and grew and grew until he became one of the premier coffee providers in the region. If you stop by their coffee shop/roasting facility during the week, you can see them roast the beans while you wait for your latte. It's pretty fun. I'm also glad to say we found a local (Colorado) company to provide our teas. Most of them are organic and a good number are fair trade, if you're looking for that kind of product. We'll be making drip coffees, espresso drinks, freshly brewed hot and iced teas, and some unique drink items (chai cider, espresso over gelato; things like that). So feel free to come by, pull up a chair next to the fireplace, pull a book off the bookshelf, and enjoy some cold gelato and hot espresso while you look out at Pulpit Rock.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Catalogs and Gelato

I remember complaining at length to Amber about the fact that I couldn't find a stainless steel mixing cup to make milkshakes in. Not in any store I went to. I'm sure she remembers it too. This was a long-standing grievance. Now I know where to get that kind of stuff. From restaurant supply catalogs.

I've got a pile of catalogs about a foot and a half high in my office right now, and I've been flipping my way through hundreds of pages of glasses, plates, ketchup dispensers, furniture, appliances, and cookware. The catalogue in front of me now has over 270 pages. It's enough to melt your brain. I've devised a clever system of different colored shapes I draw around items I'm interested in, and different symbols I mark the catalogues with to classify them. If anyone needs a meat slicer or a salad bar, let me know.

Everything is going great with the lead-up to our opening. All our major equipment is ordered now, and our spare bedroom is becoming a storage facility for various small to medium sized appliances and other items. I had a meeting to with our architect to go over our outdoor signs, and I'm really happy with how they turned out. We also went over the colors and samples, and I'm pretty happy with them too. I let our architect be my guide in choosing colors. Coordinating a whole store can be a bit tough, so I'm focusing on the decor more than the paint colors. Here are some pictures showing the glass tile that will form a border below our fireplace mantle and some samples showing our paint colors and the wood paneling that we'll be using on some walls and in a few other places (such as the front of our ice cream cabinets and the coffee bar). Oh, and we have a wall with wallpaper, so that's in there too. I've also put in a pic of our pendant lights. We'll have 8 of these, hung at different heights, three over the coffee area, 5 in the semi-private room. each piece is mouth-blown and original, so they'll all be unique.







Meanwhile, construction goes ahead. Keep your fingers crossed that we meet our deadline. Or rather that the contractors do. They're putting up sheetrock on the outer walls and framing the interior walls now.

That's your construction update for today. I've got to shop for office supplies and a water filter next. Before I go, though, let me give a (somewhat) brief answer to a question I've been asked a lot.


What is gelato? Gelato is an Italian style of ice cream. Gelato is frozen very quickly in small batches compared to ice cream. Because of the nature of gelato and how it is made and what it's made of, you only get the best results if your gelato is fresh (made on location) and it's made using European-standard equipment (which we have, but a lot of people won't spend the money for). Gelato contains less air than traditional American ice cream, but it also contains less fat (because it's made with low fat milk) and less sugar. It is traditionally flavored with fresh fruit purees, nut pastes, cocoa, and sometimes small amounts of chocolate flakes and small confections. It's also usually served at a warmer temperature. It's very light and creamy, as a result of all the above, but has a very intense flavor.

The picture above is of a gelato case in Italy. Gelato (and making it look cool) is an art there. We're trying to bring a taste of that experience to Colorado Springs. I'm not sure I can make it look quite like that (and usually you only can when your turnover rate is pretty high), but I'll do my best. I can give you the taste experience, though. Don't settle for gelato that has been shipped in from afar or that isn't fresh or that was made with machines that don't meet the European standards or that was flavored with syrups instead of real flavorings. For those of you who want to know some of the technical details of why this is all important, just read the wikipedia entry.

The First Tasting


Today was a big day. Today, we introduced Glacier Ice Cream at University Village (which the COO of UCCS tells me the students are just calling "the Village" and so shall I from now on) for the first time to a select group of Colorado Springs residents. They held a luncheon at the Village for a big organization of about 80 commercial real estate brokers. John Winsor, who is the agent I've been working with, talked about the center for a bit, and then the keynote speaker was the COO of the University of Colorado (pictured above), talking about the school and how they've changed and developed and how University Village coming in has benefited them and their students and what they're planning to do with their land on the other side of Nevada (an events center, sports facilities, a performing arts center, new dorms, etc). It's been the fastest growing university in Colorado for a decade now, apparently, and they're pretty excited about their growth.
My job was just to sit while John told everyone about our business and serve everyone bowls of ice cream afterward. John helped me scoop, since it got a bit nuts and I was so busy explaining what gelato was and telling everyone what all the flavors they could pick from were. Now that's a supportive landlord. I'm already using them as manual labor. Speaking of manual labor, I dropped by the site and they're starting to frame the interior walls. The frame for the fireplace wall is already mostly in.


The people at the luncheon were VERY impressed by our ice cream and expressed their enthusiam for coming back with their families, trying more gelato (for many it was their first time), and trying more flavors. Key lime pie and nutella were both big hits. They wiped out the milk and double dark chocolate. It was a lot of fun. I tried strawberry sorbet for the first time (with 800 flavors there are still a lot of firsts out there for me) and it was great. So fruity and so fresh, but still very rich and creamy for something without dairy. I mixed mine with a little Valrhona chocolate sorbet for a dairy-free chocolate covered strawberry treat. I also got to meet the other major partner for the Village, Tom Kohn. He seemed like a decent fellow. Chipolte, one of our neighbors, was also very helpful in letting me use their fridge and ice to cool my ice cream supply.

I'm working on getting a sign up next. I sent some people out to the site to take measurements and pictures and figure out a plan. Our name is so long, we're probably going to shorten it for the exterior signs and just put the full name on a logo sign on the tower. In other news, I talked to our POS supplier and put together an order, I received our back office computer, I figured out a cheaper way to get ahold of some of our key ingredients by forming a partnership with another local business, I talked to a merchant services provider, I made an appointment with a sound system provider, I created some coupons to give out at my pre-opening marketing events, and I brought home about 8 chipolte burritos that were left over from the luncheon. Whew.

Let me reward you for that tirade with some pictures of Patsy's and our store. First the exterior.


Then Amber and I inside talking to Mike, the son-in-law of the owners. It's a family business, and they're great people with a really cool story (involving Africa). They have another son named Mike, and I'm Mike, so it's all a big Mike festival when I visit. You should see the enormous chocolate bars they use to make their candy. 20-30 pounds. You could knock someone out with one of them, and they have dozens.



And here's a recent exterior shot of our store. If you look close you'll see me talking to Amber and her dad. The restaurant next door is coming together fast. I can already make out the outline their roof will follow, thanks to the beams.

To close out the day, I'll regale you with one last story. My coffee supplier contacted me a little while ago to let me know he'd been looking for a good deal on the espresso machine he'd recommended, and he'd found one (and one only), but sadly informed me that it had been snapped up. I told him it was ok. Luckily, I happened to know the guy who had bought it. A fine fellow called Mike Van Schooneveld. So, we've got our espresso machine. For half the retail price. Score! Here's something for all you readers to comment on: what kind of chai do you prefer, the spicier, more tea-like chai or the more milkshake-like chai? One usually comes as a dry mix of spices or as a liquid concentrate of those spices, whereas the other usually comes as a powder or as a creamy concentrated mix. Me, I like the milkshake-like vanilla chai, lots of flavor but fairly sweet and creamy. Which do you prefer?

Monday, May 17, 2010

Tasting Results

It was a busy weekend. I drank more coffee than at any other time in my life, plus some tea, all in the name of Glacier. Now I'm back home watching all these darn birds stealing the coconut lining from my window planter for their nests.

Today I finalized some major purchases: our dipping cabinets and our walk-in fridge. I've already purchased our batch freezer (which makes the ice cream), and now I'm working on our espresso machine.





This morning I did a demo of our point-of-sale software. I was pretty happy with it. I'll probably pull the trigger on it and the hardware in a day or so. And I had a meeting at our location with a guy out of Denver to do some planning for the furniture and whatnot. While hanging around I had some people drop by and ask me what was going in the space. They seemed pretty excited when they heard about Glacier. Be sure to check out tomorrow's blog. I'm doing my first tasting for a luncheon at the center we're going into, and I'll have some other fun news.
I also tried Glacier's praline caramel crunch for the first time today. I didn't like pralines until recently, when I started buying these Post cereals I like a lot. Oh My Gosh! It was INSANE! Like pecan pie in ice cream form.
After processing all the products I've tested for our store, I'm very pleased to announce that we're partering with Colorado Coffee Merchants and Patsy's Original Candies for our coffee, tea, and candy. Both are local companies, with their products produced right here in town. This will be an important part of the store, especially during the holidays, and we're going to be doing some cross-brand combo products with them that are gonna be really cool.
I'm not a big coffee drinker. Ok, I hate coffee, generally. Even in Hawaii, at the plantation, sampling all their coffees, I hated them all. Luckily I had other people to help me pick. But here's my endorsement. This is a record of the first thoughts to enter my head on drinking the CCM coffee: "Oh. So that's what they mean by 'rich and full-bodied.' Hmm. [sip] I'd drink this."
It's also going to be a lot of fun working with Patsy's. They're a local fixture, and have been or something like 110 years. If you haven't tried their almond toffee, you're missing out. My mouth is actually full of it as I'm typing this. Amazing. So crisp and buttery, such crunchy toasted nuts and rich chocolate. And now I've dropped some on myself. Well, talk to you tomorrow. I've got to change my shirt.

Friday, May 14, 2010

A Day of Samples

Hello again everyone! It's been a busy couple of days for Glacier Ice Cream. I spent most of yesterday in Boulder going over our schedule and collecting materials and information from Mark Mallen, Glacier's founder. Then I ran down to Denver to look at some of our equipment. I'm really excited about the cool display cabinets we're getting. They're really top of the line european-style units. Beautiful!

I was so busy going to meetings today I forgot to eat breakfast and missed lunch. Luckily, I was visiting some of our future wholesale vendors, so I didn't starve entirely. Instead, I had to make it through the day on nothing but chai, coffee, and chocolates. There's this great chocolate maker in town that just opened up. No real retail location yet, just a production facility. My lovely wife Amber met me down there and we took a tour and tried some samples and got to know the people a bit. Then we watched the chocolatier temper the chocolate and start filling the molds for some delicious white chocolate and grand marnier ganache truffles. I'm really excited about the possibilties for this partnership and the chance to offer some top quality european-style chocolate confections to our customers. Keep an eye out for special truffle and coffee and truffle and gelato combos and promotions once we open. Here's a quick (slightly shaky) video of the tempering machines.




We're also doing a coffee tasting this weekend of the various samples we're considering carrying. It should be a lot of fun. I'm not a big coffee drinker, so that fact that some of this coffee tastes great even to me should get you all excited. An "I'd drink this" from me is like a rave review from anyone else. 99% of coffees I won't drink, period.

One of the best things we're doing, in my opinion, is how we're sourcing our products and ingredients. We're going to be bringing the best possible products and ingredients from Colorado and from around the world. Where possible, I'm working to get all fresh and local ingredients for our ice cream. This is the land of Palisade peaches, Rocky Ford melons, Penrose apples, Hotchkiss grapes, and Paonia cherries. I want those to be the flavors you taste when you buy a cone of our fresh seasonal ice creams. We're going to squeeze fresh limes and lemons for our citrus flavors and make fresh caramel and fudge in our own production kitchen. For the rest of our ingredients, we're scouring the world for the best, most flavorful, and exotic ingredients. Nestle chocolate and canned pie cherries are ok, but wait until you try the Valrhona chocolate sorbet or the Amarena cherry ice cream.

That's all for now. Just for fun, I've included a video of me risking my life driving around in our shopping center, for those of you who have yet to visit it. Enjoy!





Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Welcome to Glacier

Hello everyone and welcome to the inaugural post of the Glacier Homemade Ice Cream and Gelato Blog. I'm Michael Van Schooneveld (for those of you who happened to find this blog on accident and don't know me), and I'm the owner and operator of the new Glacier South Operation (Glacier Southern Colorado? or maybe Southern Colorado Glacier?). Anyway. I'm very proud to be bringing this great local brand to the Pikes Peak area. A chicken in every pot and a cone in every hand, that's my motto. If you've never heard of us before, click on the link above to check out the website.

I'll take some time to delve into all the things that make Glacier great later, but for now let me just give you a bit of background and tell you what's going on now.

Glacier Homemade Ice Cream and Gelato was founded in Boulder, CO by its creator Mark Mallen. Any chance you get to stop by any of the five stores in and around Boulder, take it.

As for me, my whole family is a bit crazy for ice cream. It's in our blood. Literally. I'm pretty sure most of us register at least 5% ice cream content in our veins at any given moment. My own grandmother, who lived in Denver, had a bowl every night.

My wife and I used to live in Longmont, while I was going to school in Boulder, and that's when we discovered Glacier. Imagine our joy when a Glacier opened right in Longmont itself. Here's a picture of me visiting that happy place. In winter. Probably for the third time that week. Did I mention it's the best ice cream store I've ever been to?

So, naturally, I'm excited to be bringing Glacier Ice Cream to Colorado Springs. We'll be offering fresh homemade ice cream and gelato in our store, plus sorbets, candy, chocolate, coffee, loose leaf teas, fresh baked pastries, and more! Our brand new location is set to open in just a couple months, with a grand launch event planned for the weekend of July 4th.

You can get to us from almost anywhere in the city in two shakes of a lamb's tail, at the new University Village retail center on North Nevada (just north of Garden of the Gods/Austin Bluffs), the same development as the new Costco, Kohl's, and Lowe's. We're on the left hand side of the main entrance, directly across from Smashburger. Here's a picture from a couple months ago that I edited our logo and name into, to give you an idea of what it'll look like.

Everything is going great so far with our new location, which we're thrilled about. I can't wait to show you how it's shaping up. Construction started on Monday, mostly concrete work for the plumbing. Our equipment is getting ordered, in fact most of the major items are already taken care of. And I've been working with our partner vendors to figure out what delicious coffees, chocolates, and pastries we'll be offering when we open.

As I write this I'm polishing off a nice cup of chai tea I made using some samples and smelling the rich aroma of the bag of herbal tea I brought home with me. Later on my wife will grind up some of the coffee samples from our short list and we'll have a little tasting. In future posts I'll tell you a bit about the great local vendors we're partnering with. We want to bring the best of the Pikes Peak area together in one great location.

For now, though, the building is still an empty shell. Here's a quick video I made of the interior after the first day of work using my Flip video camera. It's not great cinema, but it'll do. I'll post updates as things go forward so you can see it all come together. That's all for now!