Welcome to this week's edition of "The Scoop", containing all the news that's fit to print, as well as one or two tidbits that probably would have been better to have left trapped in the deep recesses of my mind, but I'm gonna include them anyway!

Well, the schools are out, and the weather is HOT, so I guess this marks the start of summer. After a cool, rainy, lousy spring, we're happy to see the weather change.

We've had a lot of difficulty keeping flavors in stock -- our space is just not well suited to running the business we're trying to build to. We really need a walk in freezer, so that we can make enough ice cream ahead of time to get us through the hot, busy periods, but we just don't have the room. So we make do with a couple of small freezers and limited storage. This causes us to run short of flavors during peak sales, but please bear with us as we scurry to restock.

The silver lining of our lack of freezer space is that our ice cream is always fresh -- the faster selling flavors are just about always no more than a week old, and some of the less popular, slower movers might be as much as three or four weeks old. This is one of the things that separates us from most other ice cream sellers, who are usually selling product that was made months ahead of time and sitting around in someone's warehouse freezer waiting to be sold.

Pajama Party!

Yes, tonight is our third annual Pajama Party! Come one, come all. Wear your silliest pajamas and bedtime gear, and we'll happily reward you with a free small cone of your choice!

We'll have our Moon Bounce up. We'll be taking photos of some of the sillier or more "interesting" PJ's.

I haven't received the RSVP back from the people at Victoria's Secret, which is puzzling, as I know the hotties there wouldn't be able to resist a free ice cream cone. So while I can't guarantee that they'll be there, they probably will, so get there early.

I feel like I say this all of the time, but some like to stretch the rules, so just for the record: only those wearing REAL pajamas are eligible for the free giveaway. You're welcome to wear your sweatpants, t-shirts, etc., if that's what you typically wear to bed, and you want to be in with the spirit of the others wearing their bedtime wear. Just understand that unless you're wearing REAL pajamas, you're not eligible for a free cone. (Tops AND Bottoms please -- I don't need to see any chubby, balding, forty-ish, shirtless men in ragged pajama bottoms at the window. I've seen myself in the mirror getting out of the shower, and believe me, I don't want to subject any of our pajama clad customers to that type of abuse...)

My serving team has sole authority on deciding what is and isn't classified as "Pajamas", and their call is final. So if you want the free cone, just wear real pajamas and don't make things difficult, ok?

Thanks!

One Night Store Closing

A little pre-warning for our newsletter readers: Mad Maggie's will be closing for the night of Tuesday, July 11th, as we're planning our first ever company outing.

My serving staff works hard, and I thought taking them out as a group for a fun night's activity would be a good reward, so I've got a busy night planned for them.

(I'd clue you all in on our destination, but it's a secret, and at least a couple of my crew read this newsletter, so I'll keep quiet about if for now. But it's killing some of them to not know where I'm planning to take them! I'll write about it in the next newsletter.)

Father's Day

We did our normal "Free Cone For Dad" on Father's Day this year, and the results were a little disappointing. We gave away 76 cones, which I'd normally be pleased with. Unfortunately, I saw several cases where people asked for "a free cone for my Dad -- he's in the car" or "he's at home". My serving team told me that they thought that many of the people claiming to be fathers were just people ripping us off for a free cone.

We didn't explicitly say that the "Dad" had to be with you to get a free cone, so we ended up giving them away to anyone who asked anyway, but I have to think that some of these freebies were just people taking advantage of our generosity.

I'll have to think about this one. Next year, we'll either have tougher rules (which I hate -- I prefer to believe people will just be honest and do the right thing without us resorting to the use of fine print) or we just won't run this promotion. It's a shame to see a few people ruin an event like this.

Flavor News

Not a lot of new flavors to report about, but I do have plans to bring back a couple of old favorites.

Strawberry season is fast approaching, and the local berries should be in either this weekend or sometime next week. When they're ready, I'll again take a group of my serving team and pick 50 pounds or so of strawberries. Our "Fresh Strawberry" is (in my opinion, anyway) one of the best fresh berry flavors you'll find in the area. And we'll obviously make a few batches of fresh strawberry sorbet, which is a very refreshing dessert.

I also have plans to make a batch of our Apple Pie flavor in the next week. I originally made this as one of our fall flavors, but people have been asking for it this spring, so I'll start making it now so that we have it for the 4th of July weekend.

And two other past favorite flavors that will make reappearances soon: Cherry Vanilla Chip, and Blueberry Cheesecake. Watch for them soon!

Staff Profile

We've got two new serving team members this week, and they demonstrate the type of perserverance that it sometimes takes to stand out from the crowd of applicants we get each spring.

Lorena is a Wilmington native, and she got an application in early in April. While her application was dated and put into the folder with all of the rest, she made a point of coming by a couple of times and politely reminding me that she was still interested in working for us this summer. She has a great smile, and a friendly disposition, so her application ended up bubbling to the top of the stack of others.

Lauren is an Andover resident, and a friend of team members Mike and John, and has been around the store a few times during closing time, waiting to meet them. She's also got a great, bubbly personality, and was very helpful in drawing some signs I needed one night. When I saw her application in the pile, I didn't realize who she was, but her application stood out, as she had decorated it with drawings of ice cream cones and sundaes, and had a very enthusiastic answer to the question "Why do you want to work here?"

When we had a few unstaffed shifts over the past weeks, I decided we needed to add a couple of more team members, so these two stood out and I called them in for a face to face interview, and they started this week.

If you find one of our "rookies" waiting on you, please be patient with them, they're learning quickly!

Newsletter Coupon

One sharp newsletter reader took me up on last week's offer to have my serving team sing "You Light Up My Life". Unfortunately, I forgot how old I'm getting, as John, the team member who was asked to sing, had no idea who Debbie Gibson was. Guess I'll have to pick more topical entertainers for this type of thing in the future.

Anyway, this week, bring this coupon the the store, and we'll give you free scoop -- pay for a kiddie, and we'll scoop a small; pay for a small, we'll scoop a medium; etc.

Save paper -- don't even print this out! Just come to the stand and explain that you're one of our savvy internet readers, and we'll upgrade you! (Be prepared to explain the coupon to the serving team -- they don't always read these things!)

That's it for this week. Thanks for reading, dig out those PJ's, pray the rain holds off until later tonight, and come on by!