Steve Somerville
Samantha Carroll serves up an ice cream at Marble Slab Creamery. The gourmet ice cream shop is the second of its kind in York Region. The first opened last year in Woodbridge.
Aurora
July 19, 2008 10:20 PM
By: Steve Somerville
Legend has it that Chinese and Roman emperors once sent workers high into the mountains to gather fresh snow to mix with fruit, honey, butter and even yak’s milk to make dessert concoctions.
It was a costly venture, particularly for workers wary of arriving late with water instead of snow.
York Region is devoid of mountains, but gourmet ice cream shops such as Marble Slab Creamery have arrived — the melting problem solved — to offer up desserts for more than just the local royals.
“If I was going to work this hard, then I’d prefer working for myself,” said local resident Joan McCullough who owns two new stores with her husband, Kirk.
She was employed at PowerStream for 28 years, working her way up the corporate ladder straight out of high school and looking for something new when she discovered the unique ice cream shop in South Carolina.
Joan was so impressed with the product, and their volume of business, she phoned the company. The couple met with a franchise broker and the rest is ice cream history.
Both McCulloughs were born and raised in Markham and are residents of Stouffville.
They now own a Leslie and Aurora Road shop, which opened last week, as well as one that opened in Woodbridge last year, and are hoping to open a third local shop soon.
Marble Slab Creamery, a Texas-based chain with 500-plus stores, ups the ice cream ante by mixing it with various fruits, cookies, candy and nuts, which they call “mixings.” It all gets folded together, right before your eyes, on a cold slab before getting scooped it into a homemade waffle cone. The namesake slab is six feet long by 20-inches wide and is kept frozen by a compressor under the counter. Despite the store name, it is actually made of granite.
Without it the ice cream would melt and be tougher to mix.
There are more than 45 flavours of ice cream and hundreds of mixins combinations from which to choose.
Their cones are steeper in price than in the days of old, but everything is fresh, with no preservatives and you get an entertaining show in the mix.
Gourmet ice cream is also a labour of love for Renée Kao, her daughter Tracy Chu, and her husband, Ben, who opened Ti Amo Gelato and Cafe in Richmond Hill last year.
“I’d travelled to Italy quite a bit and fallen in love with the area and the food ... we live in Richmond Hill and saw there was nothing like that here,” Ms Chu said.
While the shop is competing with nearby chain ice cream shops, customers who find them become repeat customers, she said.
“It’s not just an ice cream shop. It’s homemade, in small batches . . . (customers) tell us they can taste the difference,” Ms Chu said.
The shop even has an open kitchen where she and Ms Kao can be seen peeling fruit and making the gelato.
The family lived in Italy and learned the process from an expert, Ms Kao said.
“We brought over the idea and see gelato getting more recognized by the public,” she said.
Sales understandably declined in the winter but Ms Kao expects things to pick up when Richmond Hill’s new theatre opens, directly across the street, in October.
While the gelato makers learned their craft the old fashioned way, the McCulloughs went through an intensive 11-day “Ice Cream University” program in Calgary. They learned all aspects of operations, from making ice cream from scratch, to the technicalities of temperature controls, to managing people professionally and courteously. Then the company brought in a top executive to help them open the stores successfully.
Today there are about 30 employees at their two stores.
While Kirk maintains his day job in insurance and helps out after hours, Joan works at the shop full time.
“I get to work with a lot of young people here,” Joan said. “Part of what I like to do here is mentor these people. For many, it’s their first job. Some are shy and soft-spoken. I’m trying to get them to project confidence which will take them a long way.”
As a bonus, all employees are entitled to a free ice cream cone after each shift.
Her favourite moment so far? An excited young boy at the Vaughan shop after receiving his first ice cream cone creation from Kirk last week enthusiastically and politely said, “Thank you, Mr. Ice Cream Man.”