Spring Greetings from the crew at Mad Maggie's Ice Cream!

Kickin' the Old Man Out:

Spring is definitely about. Old Man Winter may have one or two final kicks left in him, but he's definitely breathing heavy, and we're all waiting for him to kick off and leave us! Good riddance!

My kids did a typical "kid thing" of leaving a skateboard in the driveway just before one of those first snowstorms in January. The snowblower didn't take too kindly to sucking that skateboard up, and it's been at the shop for the rest of the winter (ask me before you bring your snowblower in for service -- I'll tell you the place NOT to bring it if you want it back quickly...) So I've been shoveling my driveway by hand -- makes you really appreciate why folks move to Florida for the winter!

Well, a winter of hunting for a new location hasn't resulted in any better site, so we'll be back at our dirty little stand at 327 Main Street, in North Reading, soon. We came close to moving over the winter, but each new location had its own set of warts, so we decided to wait for a place that is what we want, rather than settling for another sub-standard location. Plus, a couple of the locations we debated about moving to would have meant moving away from the Andover/North Reading area, and we didn't feel right about leaving behind our loyal customers and great crew. So watch for us to reopen soon!

We'll be in the store over the next couple of weeks getting things cleaned and the equipment set back up. We're hoping to open the weekend of April 2nd/3rd, but have a ton of things to get set up first, so we'll play it by ear as to our "official" opening date. If you see the lights on in the store, don't be afraid to poke your head in and say "Hi" -- we might even have some early season ice cream to hand out!

What's New?

We spent a lot of our winter scheming on what we'll do differently this year. I don't think you'll see huge changes, but a few changes we're planning to make:

• We're planning to offer "Mad Mini's" -- smaller sizes of some of our menu offerings that some folks won't order because the sizes we've previously offered are more of a meal than a dessert.
  
  Some of the items: Half-banana splits, "mini" sundaes - one scoop with fudge or caramel topping and whipped cream, mini brownie sundaes, and a small size of frappes and smoothies.
  
  Hopefully, these smaller sizes will appeal to some who want smaller portions.
• Our monthly parties with the "Moon Bounce" last year were so popular that I actually bought our own bounce unit this winter! We'll be setting this up on a regular basis -- probably one night per week on one of our less-busy nights, so that we can properly supervise it.
• We've got a couple of new flavors that we conspired with our friends at Calabash Creamery, in Calabash, North Carolina to come up with. Look for BlueBerry Cheesecake, German Chocolate, and Pear Sorbet to make an appearance on our flavor list sometime this spring.

Staff Update

I thought I had hired a new team member to help make ice cream this year, but it just didn't work out. She claimed to have experience making ice cream, so I had her come by while I was making some batches. I asked her to measure out two cups of candy for some M&M ice cream. After twenty minutes or so, she hadn't come back with them, so I went to investigate and found her sorting the M&M's!

That was bad enough, but when she asked me "Does '3' come before 'E', or between the 'M' and 'W'??", I knew it wouldn't work out.

Yes, of course, she was a blonde... ;^)

All jokes aside, we had an exceptional team working for us last year, and I'm hoping that they all come back to help out this season. My star performers usually have their choices of summer job offers though (and most offers are probably more in line with their long term career plans than scooping ice cream) so I expect to lose a couple.

As frequent visitors, I'm sure most of my Newsletter readers can attest that the kids I hire aren't the typical teenager -- I stress good manners, a pleasant disposition, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to make people happy about coming to our stand. I think I do a pretty good job at finding "good kids" who are both hard workers and enjoyable to be around.

I anticipate that any openings we have this year will be very heavily sought after though, as we turned about 40 applicants away last season, and I've already started getting phone calls from kids looking to apply for this year's staff.

Additionally, my oldest daughter, Amanda, is soon-to-be 14, the minimum legal working age in Massachusetts. And she has a cabal of friends who are also 14, all of whom assume that there's a job waiting for them at the store! Worrying about how I'm going to gently tell many of them that I can only have a limited number of kids under 16 working there is keeping me up at night -- I have this recurring dream of having my house T-P'd by a maurading pack of passed-over pubescents.

So, if you know of someone looking for summer work, please send them my way. I don't know how many openings we'll have, but we're always on the lookout for good help to fill in as those on the team go off to another job, go away on vacation, or move on to college. Our web site is the place to go for information and an application.

The important thing is for them to contact me EARLY. Any jobs we have will definitely be filled by mid-May at the latest. It has surprised me every year so far how many kids wait until school is out before looking for a summer job -- but I guess that's kids for you!

Spring Newsletter Coupon

Bring a copy this newsletter with you to the store during the month of April, and we'll give you a free small cone to thank you for listening to my rantings!

(Not that we'll have any way of monitoring it, but we'll trust you to only take advantage of this once during the month.)

Winter Birthdays

I've had "Fix Newsletter Birthdays" on my "To Do" list all winter, but not gotten around to actually fixing my website to automatically email coupons to those with birthdays during the months we're closed. So, if you're on this list, and your birthday happened over the winter, email me and I'll reply with your birthday coupon. (Email me if I miss your summer birthday too -- I don't always remember to send out the notices at the start of each month...)

That's it for now. Thanks so much for your support, and we hope to see you soon at the store soon!