Long Distance

I've been standing on my feet all day. I didn't get enough sleep last night because I squeezed in one too many episodes of Apple TV programming—we're currently watching "Dope Thief" and "The Studio." And I had to wake up at 7am this morning because I was due in Brooklyn at 10:30am to load-in for the "She Did That x MadamNoire: Queens of the Food & Beverage Scene" event.

Me with THE Budgenista aka Tiffany Aliche.

All weekend I was feeling heavy about getting myself and everything else together for this event. Sundays are usually my day for church, a New York Road Runners Race, or one of Ila’s track meets, and these emails, preparation for the week ahead. My brain has been in a million places, and it didn't help that I kicked off the week with a cyberattack on our main shop email.

As I was heading to one of the stores to meet with the team member who was scheduled to work the event, I was listening to Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara and thinking about what I want Sugar Hill Creamery to be. In short, I want it to be a lot and there’s still so much work to do to get it there.

Images from today's event...the room was filled with so many beautiful Black women business owners and their supporters. I was able to meet customers who come to our stores often and people who had never heard of us. Images from Left-Right, Top-Bottom: A lovely new soul in my network of Black women business owners LaTonia from Adjourn Teahouse; Content Creators Toya from Harlem and Dom N’ The City; Dawn of the Nourish Spot; Allison of Hibiscus Brew; Renee of Trini Bites; Rashida of Ramen by Ra; Councilman Yosef Salaam of the 9th District and his wife Sanovia Guillory; Bre of Toss’t and Press’t; Shay of Harlem Haberdashery

I want to attract young people who love people and ice cream, who could see themselves working in hospitality or in some other people-facing position that exists to bring the best out of others. I want to steward well-maintained spaces where people delight in each other, where strangers become neighbors, neighbors become friends, and friends become family. I want the young people at our stores to not only be able to speak passionately about the ice cream that Nick creates but be passionate about connecting with the customers who cross our store thresholds.

Ice cream is a medium for connecting people to each other, and I think across my whole career, from museums to present, my passion has always been that…people. I have seen the power of genuine connection between me and others and through my mother's ability to effortlessly connect with all walks of life in her daily life. I always say the inheritance she will leave me is the gift of being able to form relationships with strangers who turn into friends and family. And I believe in this work so much because I know that we are all greater than the sum of our parts.

July will mark our eighth anniversary of being ice cream people, and it feels like we're still just getting started. The work that I see for us may take another eight years to accomplish. That feels so far away from now. This morning as I was thinking about the work ahead, I was thinking about how growing and grooming this business is a long-distance run that I've never trained for.

My patience and ambition are in constant odds with each other. I want to run faster than my body can take me because I've never been in business for myself at this scale before. Ngl,* it's a little surreal that our first business has even made it this far. And there's still much more left to do.

Me with Coco of the Little FAT Girl. She makes delicious brownies. Stay tuned for a collab between our companies.

I suppose that in all of these thoughts that I'm sharing about my entrepreneurial journey, I'm hoping you stay the course of whatever it is you've been working on. It may feel like you've been working on it forever and it's only been four years. Keep going. Maybe you just started on something a few months ago and you don't feel like you're getting the traction you want. Keep going. Maybe you've been at something for decades and it doesn't feel right just yet. Just keep going. To me, perfection is consistently showing up imperfectly with the desire to master your craft.

Long distance running requires endurance and a mental anchor for the end in mind. Building a life requires the same.

To us all on our respective paths,

Petrushka

*an acronym I defined for many on my IG Stories this week thanks to the slang education I have received from our Gen Z staff. Ngl = Not gonna lie