Bless me father, for I have sinned. It's been almost three weeks since my last newsletter...

Hi, and welcome to this week's edition of Mad Maggie's email newsletter.

Well, the year seems to be flying by! We've already lost a couple of our team to final summer family vacations, and are into our "two week notice" period for some others who are planning to leave for college in mid to early August. It's a sad time of year as they start to leave us and we can feel the summer starting to fade away! We have a very fun and likeable group of kids on our team, and I really miss them when they start leaving!

We've learned from our first couple of years of operation though, and hired a couple of young'uns early in the season to help out during the late-summer, early-fall season. The new kids -- Amanda, Charlotte, and Colleen -- are really coming up to speed now, so hopefully you won't notice any difference in the service you receive at the windows.

With the higher traffic at the store recently, I also decided that we needed a couple of other sets of hands, so we have two others -- Rachal and Rachal, curiously enough -- in training. We had a lot of kids from North Reading working for us last year, but all but one (Katie, luckily, one of our best!) have dropped off of our staff due to other jobs with more hours, or due to family commitments. So, we decided to specifically hire a couple of North Reading kids for these (hopefully!) last two hires of the year, to try to keep our ratio of North-Reading-to-Andover kids up. Katie highly recommended these two, and they did great during their first training session on Sunday, so we've got high hopes that they'll end up being two more great team additions.

One of the lessons I've learned in hiring is to try to hire kids who are entering their freshman, sophomore, or junior years in high school. Seniors have so many graduation activities and celebration parties that it's usually early July before they want to work regularly, then they're off to college orientation in early August, so by the time they're trained, they're done for the year!

My oldest daughter, Amanda, is entering her freshman year at AHS, so I'm expecting to be flooded with job requests from her group of friends for next spring. It's going to be a challenge to deflect the requests of those who I don't think have the right temperment for handling the stress of dealing with customers!

State of the Business

I've spent some time over the past week doing some "gazintas" on the numbers from the business over the first two thirds of the season, and there are some interesting facts. Overall, our sales are up about 10% over last season, which is a good thing!

The part I find interesting is that even though our sales are up, we've actually made over 120 *fewer* tubs of ice cream than through the same time last season! Part of this is due to a better restraints on the portion sizes we scoop out. Some of you may have noticed some of my team periodically placing a cone or cup on the scales at the back of the store. We learned this training tool from another operator in Hubbardston, Mass, who told us that she weighs every single item that gets served.

We don't go to those extremes, but we've found that having the kids check themselves a few times each shift helps keep them from letting their serving sizes creep up, and gives us the chance to make a modest profit on what we serve. All in all, I think the use of the scales has enabled us to be sure that we're serving what we advertise -- a portion that's priced fairly to both the customers and to us. And I have a lot less moments of stress caused by seeing a grapefruit-sized scoop go out the window when the customer paid for a kiddie!

Additionally, while we bumped up our ice cream prices only about 5% this spring, we raised the prices on the labor intensive items like frappes and banana splits by a larger amount. It takes about four times as long to make a frappe as it does to scoop a cone, yet last year we were charging about the same amount for a frappe as for a medium cone, which has the same amount of ice cream! Some of my acquaintances in the business heard about this and told me I was nuts, so we adjusted our prices up on those, and I think this accounts for the better margins we're seeing.

I still think we make the best frappe around -- and I should know, as I end up drinking the "Frankenstein Frappes" that the girls save from the leftovers in the frappe cups after serving. So I think we're still offering a great value on these to those of you who enjoy a drink instead of a scoop!

Know Your State Capitals

One of my fairer haired team members has been reading these newsletters, and chiding me that I'm wrong about blondes being not so bright. She challenged me to name any state, and she could name the capital.

"OK", I said, "What's the capital of Wisconsin?"

"Oh, that's an easy one", she replied, "It's 'W'"...

New Fall Flavors

It's hard to believe that we're already running out of our "summer" flavors, but fresh strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry have all come and gone! And we're now starting to make our "Fall Flavors" for these last several weeks of the season.

Our first is Apple Pie. We made a single batch of this late last September, and it was such a hit that I decided to start selling it early this year. I found a wonderful supplier of the base flavoring -- opening the can, the contents look and smell like a fresh baked apple pie filling. I add some crushed graham crackers, and add a streak of more apple pieces. Close your eyes and you'd swear you were biting into a nice piece of apple pie ala mode!

Another flavor we've now got in stock is Guinness. I've made this a few times over the past two years, and it's been "ok", but not "GREAT!". Well, I still think it's not "GREAT!", but at this point it's at least "Good!". I've received suggestions from a lot of others around the country on how to make this, but none of the recipes I've tried have come out strong enough to suit my taste. I've made two variations of this in the past week, and in the latest one, I put about 16 pints (!!) of Guinness into the batch, and the taste is still a little subtle, but a surprisingly nice taste. (The Guinness gets cooked down to reduce the amount of water, which also burns off the alcohol content -- no need to worry about bringing a designated driver along with you so you can enjoy a cone!)

Someone else who makes this emailed me and told me that Guinness is his most-requested flavor to sample, but probably one of his least ordered ones. Our experience with it is similar, as *everyone* seems to want to taste it, but only the very adventurous customers actually end up ordering a cup!

Also, after our Boston Magazine article and a recent Andover Townsman article both mentioned our "Coffee and Donuts" flavor, I finally made a batch of it this weekend to satisfy the request we've been getting. We use fresh Krispy Kreme donuts (I took a run to Medford early Saturday morning and got them while they were still hot...) I had several people who ordered this over the weekend rave about the taste -- it really *does* taste like you're sipping your morning coffee with a fresh Krispy Kreme in hand! I warn you that this is a flavor that's only good while it's fresh -- once the donuts sit in the ice cream for more than a few days, they lose their freshness fast! So come and get it while it's "hot"!

Staff Profile

This week's newsletter features team member Jennifer.

Jenny is another Andover resident, and was brought on board at the tail end of our first season when her older sister, Katie, went off to college. Katie was one of my favorite team members -- she was the first team leader we hired. When we talk about our team, Maggie and I always say that Katie not only did a tremendous job while she worked for us, but she also "passed the baton" perfectly to younger sister Jenny!

Jenny has so much going for her, she's hard to describe without it seeming as if I'm exaggerating. First off, she's one of the fastest girls in the state, as she led the girls' 4x100 relay team that won the Massachusetts state title this spring. She's a great student, as I always find her name on the High Honors list during the school year, and she's unbelieveably talented at drawing (I have her make most of the signs around the store) and she has a habit of singing along to songs on the radio while at the store, and she's got a beautiful voice.

We made a cake for a customer for the 4th of July this year, and I noticed Jenny spending an awful lot of time, seemingly doing some intricate decorations to it. When she was done, I was amazed to see that she had taken some rainbow sprinkles, and had fastidiously arranged them to form a miniature American flag, complete with exploding fireworks! I wish I had taken a photo of it, but I forgot!

Jenny is very much a "people person", and seems to know *everyone*, both in Andover and in North Reading from her years of track meets. When she first started working for us, I told Maggie that I thought more people came by to visit Jenny than to get ice cream whenever she was working!

Jenny is a very pretty young lady -- I've never seen so much attention being paid to mulching the flower beds outside the store as I did the day when she was making waffle cones in the window while the workers from the Flower Market were doing some ground maintenance. I'll bet the mulch was a foot deep in places!

She also conspired with Melissa to come up with the ingredients in our "Brownie Blast" ice cream flavor. I still say it need nuts, but it's been a hot seller, so what do I know?

Jenny is off to attend the University of Illinois this fall, where she plans to study Communications. Some of you may recognize her from Andover Youth Services "Raise the Roof" telethon, where she spent some time on camera helping to describe the auction items. She says that she's interested in broadcasting, and I wouldn't be surprised to see her as a sports reporter on ESPN sometime soon!

Here's a link to a photo of her from earlier this season, so that you can recognize her when you see her on national TV some day:

All in all, Jenny is an exceptional young lady, and has been a delight to have on our team. We're going to miss her when she heads off to school!

Newsletter Coupon

Our snazzy "Flavor Mugs" should be in by the time you get this. We ordered a couple of dozen mugs, mainly because I like shiny, new things (plus, they're a tax write off ;^).

You can see a photo of these on our website.

These cost us $7.15 each (plus shipping), but print out this coupon, bring it to the store, and we'll sell one to you for the unbelievable price of just $5.00! Can't beat that deal with a big heavy stick!

That's it for now, thanks for reading, and we sure hope you'll stop by the store soon!