There is such an ice cream shop in the Bay Area: located in a container, the ice cream for sale only has 4-6 flavors, and it changes with the season-even the most sparse strawberry flavor is only available in summer. But the taste of this ice cream is astonishingly unprecedented, making people curious about the magic of this broken container. So the team came to this Smitten Ice Cream to ask the founder Robyn for tips. Over the aura of Williams College + Stanford, Robyn gave up the consulting company's "great future" for the ice cream business, and started selling it along the street to build this dream of silky sweetness and perfectionism.
Time: 11.09.2015
Interviewed: Robyn S. Fisher, founder of Smitten ice cream parlour.
Interviewer @Chihuo: Ethan & Marie
Image: Smitten
Translation @Chihuo: Wang ribs are meow stars
Ethan: Smitten has been open for 8 years. How did you think about opening this store in Smitten? Why the first thought was selling ice cream? How have you been in these 8 years?
Robyn: I decided to open an ice cream shop because I wanted to do what I love and make it better. For me, ice cream is always with special moments in my life. My mother told me when I was a kid that I actually had two stomachs: one was for ice cream. I still think so. At that time, our family would eat ice cream together after dinner. This is a special moment for my family. So I love not only the taste of ice cream, but also the feeling that everyone gets together to share ice cream.
After graduating from college, I used to work in a large company for about four and a half years. I don't think this kind of work suits me well. I really want to have real communication with other people, instead of sitting at the computer every day and not talking to each other as I did at the time. Selling ice cream can reach many people, bring them joy, and connect people. The power of this thing made me desperate to get involved. That's why I choose to sell ice cream. For adults like me, selling ice cream every day is fun and fun. The whole process is long, but I still woke up with passion every day.
(Robyn once worked for the well-known consulting company Monitor Group)
Ethan: How you started Smitten and why you choose ice cream as your first food business? It's been 8 eight years since you started Smitten. How has it been?
Robyn: So the reason I decided to go into ice cream is that I decided to go after something I love and make it better. Ice cream to me has always been a very special moment of my life. From when I was a little kid, my mom used to tell me that I have two stomachs. One was only for ice cream. I still believe that, and it was a time in my family when we all have ice cream after dinner. It is always something I love for the taste and the feeling of being together.
I worked in a corporate world for about four and a half years after college. I didn't feel it really fit me very well. I really wanted to have a tangible human connection with people. And I feel like a lot of what I do is sitting in front of computer and not talking to each other. So I felt that going into ice cream you are touching so many people and really what you do is you bring joy and build human connections. It is such a powerful thing to be a part of. And so that is the reason that I am in ice cream. It's giving joy everyday and it's fun thing to do as an adult. That's how I got here. It's been a very long process to get here. But I still wake up excited everyday.
(Robyn worked in management consulting at Monitor Group, which is one of the top consulting firms)
Ethan: When you were a management consultant in the past, your thinking mode was biased towards business. However, the decision to do a small business on its own can be said to completely deviate from the career path of management consulting. What challenges have you encountered and how have you responded to them?
Robyn: There are challenges every day. Most of the time I don't know what I'm doing. So I will invite some mentors to study and discuss with the wise men I respect very much. I try to find a balance. I know what I am good at and what I am not good at. For areas that I am not good at, I rely on experts in these areas to make important decisions for me. I focus on the aspects of culture, research, development and brand maintenance, all of which I am best at. I hired experts in finance, marketing, procurement, and operations to make up for what I lacked.
Every day is a challenge, which makes my life exciting. I never feel bored. pretty good. When I was in a big company, I knew that I hated the same routine, and I definitely couldn't do it. I also don't like being restricted by too many rules. I hate office buildings. So again, I am really not suitable for working in a large company. I like to slowly explore and grow in places that are not very clear, and explore how to make things clear and real. This is what we are doing every day. We try to discover a new dimension that ordinary people don't see on what seems to be well-known, and find ways to make it usable. So this is a very interesting worldview.
Ethan: As a management consultant, you are used to business thinking. However, making a decision jumping into a small business is very different than a typical management consultant career. What type of challenges did you encounter and how did you handle them?
Robyn: It's been a challenge every single day. I have no idea what I am doing a lot of time. So a lot of it is just relying on mentors and other smart people who are I am honored to have in a room with me to figure things out. And I really just trying to balance things out, I know what I am good at and I know what I am not good at. So I just try to find experts in fields that I am not good at so that I can really defer to them on things that are really important to business that I am not an expert in. So the things that I am focused on are culture, research and development and branding. Those are the areas that I think I am the best at. And then I have experts in finance, marketing, sourcing and operations who even out my flaws.
I think it's a challenge everyday and it's what makes life exciting. And I am never bored. That's nice. And I also learned in corporate world that I hate routines, I hate it and I am not good at it. I really also don ' t like too much structure. I feel getting confined. I hate office buildings. And so again, I don't really fit in the corporate world. I like to thrive in the gray area and figure out how to clear out the gray and make it more tangible. That's kind of what we are doing everyday. We are trying to take something that seems to be really well understood, and turn it on it's head and say no no no there is another layer here that no one else sees, then try to figure out how to make it ours. So it is a fun way of looking at the world.
Marie: Is this how your containers come?
Robyn: This container is very special. The earliest I sold ice cream on the side of the road with a small trailer. Before that, we spent two years building prototype ice cream products in the basement. So these three years are really super confusing, relying on my own little hard work. But learning how to start a company with very little capital makes me feel great. What we learned in the business school is to first raise the A round, raise two million dollars or something, and then buy and buy. Leaving us here was totally unworkable. At the time, the economy was in a recession and we couldn't consider financing. So I said, let's take a look at how to do this in a difficult but more practical way.
At that time I adopted a distinctive and fragmented way of thinking, and I also greatly appreciated the idea of new retro style. Smitten is fully integrated into the new retro style: we make the ice cream pure again without adding any ingredients that should not appear in the ice cream. Mass-produced ice cream brands contain many additives that are used to maintain quality and stability, and our goal at Smitten is to remove all these additives to make ice cream as pure as it was long ago. The ingredients in our ice cream exist only for this purpose.
Ice cream is made by ancient methods, but we operate in the most fashionable and fashionable way. Containers are an example of neo-retro style. We took an abandoned container and gave it a new life. I like the combination of old and new. The transformed container embodies the street culture of our brand when it started: Picking up something from the street and making it to our store, this is the unique ice cream shop. Much like the old ice cream takeaway stall. We transform old things into new ones, and we fully implement this idea. I hope to open a few more stores in containers in the future.
The process of opening the store taught me how difficult it is to deal with the land planning department. It took two years to complete the procedures and procedures. Before this land was developed by others, the procedures for changing the type of land use were very troublesome. Then the electricity, water, infrastructure and other things need to get approval from all neighbors, businesses and environmental protection departments. So we also told the real estate agent that if we saw a suitable site, we would rush to win it, and it would be a lot easier to find a built shop directly. All our other stores are open in shops, but if I meet the right place, I still want to be a container storefront.
Marie: Is it how you like the food container?
Robyn: The container is very special. When I started the company I was selling ice cream on the street out of a wagon. That was after two years of building a prototype in a basement. And so it was basically three years of being super scrappy and bootstrapping. And learning how company could get started on a very slim amount of money, I felt really good. In business school I learned that you raise series A. Raise 2 million dollar, then you go buy everything. I was like, that didn't work. It was the recession. It was not even an option. So I was like, let's figure out how to do this the hard way, the way that is more real.
So what really got ground into me at that point was the thinking differently and the scrappy mindset. I also really appreciated the idea of new old fashion. Smitten really embraces new old-fashion. We are making ice cream pure again by not including any ingredient that shouldn't be in ice cream. So all of the mass distributed ice cream flavor and brands all have a lot of extra ingredient to hold it stable. My goal at Smitten is to take all of that out and make it pure again. We make ice cream that just have the ingredient that it should have for taste and taste alone.
We are doing old-fashion ice cream and we are doing it in an uber-fashion way. The idea of shipping container was an example of new old-fashion. We were taking a recycled shipping container that was being thrown out and make it new again. So I really like that combination of new and old. I really thought that embodied the brand and the street culture that we started it. We started on the street. So let's really take something on the street and turn it into our shop and make look like the ice cream that no one has ever seen. It's like an old fashion walk up ice cream counter. Making something old new again. That really embraces us well. I hoped to open other shops in shipping containers.
What I learned is that it's really hard to do with all the land zoning. It took us two years to get the shop open with all the permitting and all the processes of getting it through. And they the developers were working on that years before. So it's a really hard process to get someone to zone land in a way to use it for that type of zone. And also you have to get all the electric bring all the plumbing all the infrastructure to the land. For that, you have to get all these different neighbors approval and merchants approval and environmental approval. So we have still told all of our brokers if you see a spot we can do that let's go for it. But it's been much easier to find really cool brick and mortar locations. And we find ones that we love and we do that instead. So all of our other shops are brick and mortar but I would love to do more shipping containers if the right land shows up.
Ethan: So this is the earliest one?
Robyn: It was the earliest one.
Ethan: So this shop is the original shop?
Robyn: It is the original shop.
Ethan: You mentioned selling ice cream on the road before. I think Smitten can reach this step today, it must have experienced great success. What's the secret of Smitten becoming a leading street merchant?
Robyn: Smitten's street hawker career is very fascinating to me. This experience allowed us to find the position of this company. I still remember that our small trailer once ranked first on Yelp and even surpassed San Francisco chef Gary Danko's restaurant of the same name. I deliberately cut the picture. There are several things that have made us. The most obvious point is the production process: When I stand on the street to make ice cream, the whole body is covered with mist and fog, and people will wonder "What the hell are you doing?" Immediately attracted attention. Then comes the product itself: I work with the dessert chef every day to discuss what flavors I want to make today, and what kind of wine I can pair with. We must choose the best option. If you can only choose one, it must be the best in the world.
In the past, if 30 people were waiting in line for our ice cream, we would be surprised and happy. It takes 5 minutes to complete an ice cream on the street, so customers may have to wait for an hour. But everyone is waiting, I think it is because they see the happy smiley faces at the end of the team. The product itself must be persuasive, and we have always relied on our products. As long as we taste our ice cream, customers will know that it is the best in the world. After eating other ice cream, especially after feeling the difference in texture, you can never accept ordinary ice cream.
Ethan: You mentioned that you had been selling ice cream on the street. I would imagine it needs to be a critical success to lead to the Smitten business today. So what is the secret that makes Smitten stand out among all the other street food vendors ?
Robyn: So the street carting, we called “wagoneering” stage of Smitten was amazing for me. And I think it really helped to chart the path of who we are as a company. It was one time I remember, we, out of our wagon, ranked above all restaurants on yelp and Gary Danko. I have a screenshot of that day. But I think a couple things made us stand out. One is obviously the process. So I was on the street, with the big fog, cloud above me making ice cream, making people think “what on earth were you doing.” That immediately caught attention. And then also, the product itself. So I would work with our pastry chef everyday like we still do. And figure out what is the one flavor that we are going to do today. What is the wine pairing that we are going to maybe add to it? I had got only one option, and it had to be crazy good. So if you got only this one thing, it's got to be out of this world.
We would have blow our minds and thirty people deep in the street waiting for the product. It takes about 5 minutes to make one person's ice cream on the street. So people were waiting for like an hour for their ice cream. But yeah I think they waited because they saw the happy smile at the end of the line. The product needs to speak for itself, always. We always defer to it. Because we really think that once people taste the ice cream they would know that it's the best in the world. Once you taste another ice cream after ours, especially with the texture, you can't go back.
Ethan: Can you briefly introduce the most unique feature of Smitten ice cream?
Robyn: Of course. There are two main points. One is our "Brrr" ice cream maker, a patented product that can produce the smallest ice crystals. The smallest ice crystal means super invincible silky ice cream. The texture of our ice cream is so smooth because we try to keep the ice crystals as small as possible, so small that you can't see them, and your tongue can't feel it. Large particles of ice crystals indicate that they are frozen and a little disgusting. Conventional ice cream freezes at a higher temperature, and the ice crystals have a chance to grow larger. If the temperature is kept low, the ice crystals will remain small particles. Our machine is perfect for this process. It can sense the thickness of the ice cream and intelligently adjust and control it, so it will not be over-frozen or not completely frozen, which is indeed a very delicate freezing technology.
The second point is that we have professional culinary talents. Our dessert chef once worked at a high-end restaurant where she was responsible for designing recipes and seasonings. The combination of excellent ingredients, understanding of taste and food, and technology has created the extraordinary Smitten. With technology but no good ingredients, or a good chef but the level of technology in the store is not enough, they cannot reach the state of Smitten.
Ethan: Can you briefly describe what makes Smitten ice cream so special and the unique thing that makes it stands out?
Robyn: Sure. There are two elements. One is our “Brrr” machine. It's patented to make the smallest ice crystals possible. And smallest ice crystal means super duper smooth ice cream. So the texture of our ice cream is so smooth because the ice crystals are as tiny as possible. The small ice crystals mean that you can't see them and you can't feel them on your tongue. Large ice crystals mean freezer burn. It's kind of gross. Normal ice cream is frozen at a higher temperature so the ice crystals have a chance to grow. And when it's so cold it stays small. And our machine basically perfects that process. The machine actually senses the thickness of the ice cream and knows when to stop turning. So it doesn ' t over freeze the ice cream or under freeze it, which is a really nuanced freezing technique.
And then secondly, we have a very strong culinary side to our business. So we have a pastry chef who designs all of our recipes, all of our flavors around the taste profiles from her high-end restaurant background. And that combination of amazing ingredients and understanding of taste and food plus the technology is what makes Smitten so special. You can have the technology and put bad ingredients in it, or you can have a chef without the technology and neither of them could be as good as Smitten.
Ethan: Can you tell us about the "purest raw materials"?
Robyn: Of course. There is a full-time position in our team called "Hunting Gatherer", whose job is to find the best ingredients. Our focus is on the local market, so milk and cream are sourced from local organic dairy suppliers. Agricultural products are also sourced within California as much as possible. If you still can't meet the quality and quantity requirements, look for it on the West Coast. This (reduces transportation costs) is better for the environment and keeps it fresh and delicious with short transportation distances. Our ice cream does not add emulsifiers, stabilizers or preservatives, which is exactly what we want to do.
Focusing on the quality of the raw materials, let's stop asking ourselves "how long can ice cream last" and only care about "how delicious can ice cream be". The packaged ice cream made concessions in many ways in order to adapt to distribution logistics. We do not compromise on the shelf life. For example, we will ask, if we can eat the ice cream within two minutes after making it, what level can we make? This is an interesting task for the dessert chef. Our creative freedom is beyond the reach of most ice cream merchants.
Ethan: About the fact that Smitten uses the purest ingredients. Can you talk about that too?
Robyn: Sure. We have a full time position on our team as the hunter and gatherer. Her job is to go find the best food. We focus locally so we work with local organic dairies to get our milk and cream. And then we try to find the best tasting organic produce ideally in California. If we cannot find the right taste and quantity, then we try to stay at the west coast. Just so that it is good for the environment. It also tastes better if it doesn't have to travel so far. We don't use any emulsifier, stabilizer or preservatives in our ice cream. So that is illuminating our vows of make it pure again.
By focusing on the quality of the ingredient that we do have, it is a really fun thing to say how can we make this, not like how can we make this last, but how good can we make this. It's a twist on ice cream . Packaged ice cream has a lot of compromises in it. Because they have to figure out how to make it last through distribution chain. And we throw all of those compromises out of window. Say if it eaten in two minutes after it's frozen, how good can we make it? It's a really fun thing for a pastry chef to work on. So we have a lot of liberties that other ice cream companies don't have.
Ethan: How did you come up with and test new flavors?
Robyn: When creating new flavors, we let the sweeteners explore freely. Our products come by season. For example, we only provide strawberry flavor when the strawberry is on the market, and we make pumpkin flavor in autumn. This makes sense for both local suppliers and the season. We will think of a way. So we went from lemon gingerbread to blood orange pistachio cookies, to strawberries and nectarines, to the winter menu. The local fruits and vegetables are simply a beautiful rainbow. However, the dessert chef suggested me the alternative taste.
It is always good to prepare some traditional flavors, such as chocolate with fresh mint and sea salt caramel. It's easy to recognize these flavors, and the basics are always a dazzling alternative. So we worked hard to make the basic models unique. For example, chocolate flavor is different from others. Most people use chocolate powder, which is cheap and convenient. Our dessert chef said, "I'm going to make ganache." It's a thick chocolate sauce (translator: see the kind of pudding in American supermarkets), sometimes made directly into cakes. So she made this chocolate ganache and added cream. It is the most corrupt and indulgent way of eating chocolate. Our approach is completely different from others. Although the name of the taste sounds normal, it is the exclusive recipe of our dessert chef. She will open her mind and do some experiments herself, and once she has some eyebrows, she will ask me to try them together. I often make ice cream for breakfast early in the morning. Until the new flavors are officially launched, we will continue to scrutinize them.
Ethan: How do you guys come up with new flavors and how do you guys test out new flavors?
Robyn: So in terms of the process of flavor creation, we really give our pastry chef a lot freedom to explore. We go by the seasons, so we only serve strawberry ice creams in strawberry season. Right now we are doing pumpkin. We do things that make sense for locally and the season. We work our way through. So we go from a lemon ginger snap in a blood orange with pistachio cookies and we go strawberry then we go to a nectarine crisp then we work into winter months. It's definitely a beautiful rainbow of fruit that we can get locally. But it's up to the chef to propose flavors to me.
It's always good to have traditional flavors for people, like the chocolate with fresh mint and salted caramel. It's something that people can always identify with and fall back on if they just need to have the basics. So we work really hard to make those unique to us. We don't just do chocolate like everyone else does it. We actually take chocolate and we do it in a really unique way. For instance, most people make chocolate ice cream with cocoa powder because it's cheap and easy. How our chef designed it was she actually said "I am going to make a ganache" which is like a thick chocolate pudding that sometimes get turn into a cake. So she makes this melted chocolate ganache and we add cream to it. It is the thickest and most decadent chocolate. We don't do it the way everyone else does it. So even if the flavors that seem like a standard name, it's still our chef's way of approaching it. The chef goes off and does some tests on her own. Then once she feels like there is something that is getting close then she and I test a bunch of things together. IT's usually in the morning so I usually eat ice cream for breakfast. And we would have a couple more iterations before we are ready to reveal the flavor.
Ethan: That's great! Can you tell us another interesting story?
Bobyn: We opened the first year and changed two flavors every week. I was naive and didn't know how difficult it was to achieve. We learned a lot from it. The most interesting part is that it has some great flavors, but most people don't really like it. We found that if you only sell four flavors, you have to choose the same four. (The first Smitten store has four flavors, and the others have six.) So customers don't have to wait too long. Some flavors that are no longer sold are really interesting, such as bay leaves and spring grass. We are "leftist" in cooking. Earl Grey tea flavors are available now, which is fun but not surprising. We learned a lot about customer preferences. Although we like certain flavors, we cannot sell them. Can be considered while learning. I have tried hundreds of flavors to know which ones are right in the range of "chic" and "acceptable".
Ethan: That sounds cool. Can you tell us an interesting story?
Robyn: During the first year we were open, we change two flavors every week. I was naïve. I had no idea how hard that would be. We learned so much. What was really interesting is there were some flavors that were so good. But they didn't appeal to a lot of people. So we learned that when you only have four flavors you really need to have four that sell evenly. (There are four flavors at the first Smitten shop. All the others have 6 flavors. ) So that people don't wait too long. But some of the flavors we no longer do were really interesting. We did a bay leaf. We did a spring herb. We are pretty “left wing” in culinary. So now we have an earl grey. That's an interesting flavor but not so out there. We learned a lot about what people like. Even though we liked some flavor, it is not enough for the business to work. It was kind of learning through trying. So we tried like hundreds of flavors to learn what is the sweet spot between being special but still approachable.
Ethan: Do you have a favorite taste?
Robyn: Yes, I like Tcho chocolate. I have n’t actually picked chocolate, but I started to love it. Later, the month of my birthday, I introduced the blood orange with pistachio cookie flavor. I also like the crunchy nectarine flavor of raspberry sauce, which is very crunchy and very delicious.
Ethan: Is there one or two flavors that is your favorite?
Robyn: Yes, my favorite flavor is the Tcho chocolate. Like I have never been a person who likes to order chocolate flavor. But it became my favorite because of the way we make it. And then during my birthday month, we have the blood orange with pistachio cookies. I also like the nectarine crisp with berry sauce on top. It's like nectarine berry crisp. So good.
Ethan: What about the cone? I heard that the cone is also very unusual.
Robyn: We do everything from scratch. The cone is also our chef's own recipe. The batter is made in the morning. Most of the time, the cones are still warm because they are just out of the oven. We take everything seriously. Everything about ice cream is well thought out and we have carefully cooked it with our own hands. We take control from the source. Only cookies are not made by ourselves, because there is no oven.
Ethan: How about the cones? I heard there is something special about them as well.
Robyn: We make everything from scratch. That's our chef's recipe for the cones. The batters are made from scratch in the morning. A lot of times the cones are still a little warm because we just made them. We take everything seriously. Everything that is included with the ice cream is really well thought out and procured in house. We are responsible from the sauces. The only thing we don't make in our little shop is the cookies because we don't have an oven.
Ethan: These stories about ice cream shops are all very interesting. Thank you for sharing all this with us!
Robyn: Thank you.
Ethan: That was a very interesting story to build an ice cream shop. Thank you for your time and kindness in sharing your story with us.
Robyn: Thank you.
~ Smitten store address and opening hours ~
San Francisco (Hayes Valley) – 432 Octavia Street, Suite 1A
Monday – Tuesday: 12pm – 10pm
Wednesday: 12pm – 10:30pm
Thursday – Friday: 12pm – 11pm
Saturday – 11:30am – 11pm
Sunday – 11:30am – 10pm
San Francisco (Pacific Heights) – 2404 California Street
Monday – Thursday: 12pm – 10:30pm
Friday – 12pm – 11pm
Saturday – 11:30am – 11pm
Sunday – 11:30am – 10:30pm
Oakland – 5800 College Avenue
Sunday – Thursday: 12pm – 10:30pm
Friday – Saturday: 12pm – 11pm
Lafayette – 3545 Mt. Diablo Boulevard
Sunday – Thursday: 12pm – 9:30pm
Friday – Saturday: 12pm – 10:30pm
Los Altos – 4800 El Camino Real
Monday – Friday: 12pm – 10:30pm
Saturday – Sunday: 11:30am – 10;30pm
The Point, El Segundo – 850 S. Sepulveda Blvd, Suite K100, El Segundo
Monday – Thursday: 12 – 10pm
Friday: 12 – 11pm
Saturday: 11am – 11pm
Sunday: 11am – 10pm
~ LA will open a new store ~
Silverlake – 3100 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles
Opening summer 2016
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