Spring

Yesterday, I spent the majority of the day at Zadie's first wrestling competition. I'd share photos, but I was explicitly asked by my child not to, so I'm, of course, honoring that. Imagine her in pigtails (not my wisest hairstyle for the occasion) wearing a green, black, and white singlet with the word "Harlem" stretched across it. Cuuute!

Me and Nick last week on our last night without children. We went to see the Knicks play the Mavericks at the Garden. I forced him to take this picture as I always do when we're out. Our older minds will thank me in 40 years.

We were home from the competition for less than an hour before we had to leave again to help at the Lexington store because yesterday was the first hot day of the year and we were short-staffed. On the first hot day after winter, the stores are packed. As we suspected, all the stores were busy, and the hectic day commenced because we knew ahead of time that we were going to be short-staffed.

I've been looking forward to spring since the end of last year. My anticipation has been rooted in the fact that the end of the year sucks cashflow-wise for our very seasonal business but also because, since attending our annual ice cream association conference, I've had so many new ideas for how to improve our business when our season starts again. I've said to Nick multiple times, "I think this is going to be our best spring yet!" And, you know what? This past January and February were better than last year's—we had more visitors than previous years and exceeded last year's numbers…and then we got hit with (and auto-paid) an unexpected business tax bill that we didn't plan for.

Here’s one of our newest flavors that has polarized folks on TikTok…it’s a sorrel sorbet with blue Pop Rocks. When I posted the video of Nick scooping it, many people drooled and others nearly lost their lunch. Look at the video, read the comments, and see for yourself.

With us revving up for the spring, we had the available cash earmarked for our usual expenses like payroll, sales tax, and a very large food ingredient order that would allow us to transition into our busiest season. Needless to say, we were both spiraling trying to figure out how we would make it to this season that I have been anticipating for months. This all happened while the kids were in California, so in addition to us having the time to consider our identity as a couple, we were also having some very big conversations about the vision for our business.

As I was sharing with an entrepreneur friend after church today, I’m more committed than I have ever been to growing deeper, not wider as a business. Are people impressed that we are located in more than one store? Unfortunately, yes. Too many of us are excited about big and wide. And, sadly, there’s not enough sparkle or praise for people making one thing flawless. That’s not how most of us Americans are wired, I’m afraid.

The picture I shared in my IG Stories earlier this week of me with one of my oldest friends. We were inseparable as children and now we both have two older girls and a boy. Wild! While we live in different cities, she always reaches out to get a meal when she’s in town for work. This is what life is about…maintaining our relationships.

New has always been exciting to me. Building new things gets me going, but I'm finding newfound excitement in perfecting what I have. If you're like me, maintenance work isn't fun or sexy, but the lesson I've been trying to integrate over the last couple of years is that maintenance work is a must if I want the things I own to stay around. This applies to my favorite pair of shoes, my relationships, my home, and my business. The maintenance work (cleaning, reinforcing, refining, and reevaluating) is what keeps things going. Just being a Tasmanian Devil spinning out innovation can lead to a chaotic mess.

I can't announce the changes we're making now, but changes will be made.

The purpose of this business was to give us more agency in our personal lives. How else could I be these children's personal Uber driver while also attending to my career if not for this business? Running a bootstrapped (no investors) food business in New York City is not easy, but my goal is for it to be a well-oiled machine that brings more peace than stress.

I continue to look forward to this season, which I believe will be full of promise and lots of delicious ice cream made right here in Harlem.

Petrushka

Your Local Ice Cream Lady & Life/Business Coach