Thank goodness spring is here!

Talk about taking off with a BANG! After that dreadful, gray March, the warmer temperatures and the occasional sunshine of the early part of April has really seemed to light the "ice cream craving" in people, as we've had some extremely busy times at the store over the past couple of weeks. My biggest problems have been keeping our flavors in stock, as we seem to go through mountains of ice cream in amazingly short periods, and keeping enough serving team members behind the counter, as a few of my team "anchors" are away with their families on vacations this week.

My super serving team are happy as clams, as most of them seem to enjoy work a lot more when they're busy, rather than when customer traffic is slow, and I work hard to find things for them to clean. It's a little like a family reunion at this time of year too, as the kids who were hired late last year are returning to the team, after dropping off the bottom of the schedule during the winter when shifts were hard to come by. And, although they work harder now, they're happy at the end of the night, as their share of the tips has gone from "enough to get a burger and fries" to "enough to top off the gas tank".

We welcomed returnees Shannon, John, David, Michelle, Katie, and Jenna, who all worked their first shifts of the season over the past couple of weeks, and we are eagerly looking forward to seeing the rest of the team rejoin us.

And, we're only about four weeks from having our college kids return, as most of them get out of school in mid-May. All in all, it's an exciting, happy time around the store, and we're looking forward to a busy spring and summer.

The great weather of this past week, along with the school vacation week, has made this a fantastic week of sales for us. Finally, we're seeing the traffic levels that we suspected we'd be able to hit at this great new location. We've churned through a lot of the past bills this week, and finally seeing some light at the end of the dark tunnel of winter expenses.

Good Press

Our "Pint for a Pint" donation at last month's Red Cross blood drive at the North Andover High School got us a mention in an article in "Town Crossings". If you missed it, you can read a copy of the article here:

http://www.towncrossings.com/homepage/local_story_086140811.html

We've done this quite a bit over the years, as I look at the Red Cross as my "pet" charity. And unlike donating money, where you never know exactly what happens with it, there's not a lot else they can do with blood, so you can be pretty sure that your efforts helped someone in need -- maybe even saved a life or three!

My Faith in Humanity, Restored

If you read this newsletter regularly, you'll remember that back in the fall, I bemoaned the fact that our digital camera had gone missing.

At the time, I wrote that the last time I remembered seeing it, a group of youths at the counter were looking through the photos on it, and giggling nervously. I suspected that one of them had walked off with it as a prank.

Well, shame on me for pointing a finger, because this morning, as I took our little portable cooler off the basement shelf it had been stored on since the fall, I noticed one of the outside pockets bulging.

Yep, sure enough, our camera was in there! We must have taken it with us to one of the fall events we did, and forgot that we had stuck it in there.

Guess I'll get rid of that Voodoo doll I had made up to represent that group of kids, and pull the pins and nails out of it.

Of course, just this past week, I finally broke down and bought a brand new digital camera, but at least now I'll be able to grab the photos off the old camera, and upload them onto our website.

So watch the website for photo updates, and be aware that you'll need to be alert around the store now, as we'll have two cameras ready to snap the pictures of happy-looking customers!

Pajama Party

We've already begun planning our annual "Pajama Party", although I'm a little worried about how big the turnout might be at our new location. We like to hold this on the last day of school, so long as that day isn't late in the week, as we'd prefer to do this on one of our slower traffic days, so look for an "official" date of sometime around June 23rd this year.

The early planning each year involves sending a letter to the "Victoria's Secret" corporate office, letting them know that our offer of a free kiddie cone is open to all of their lingerie models -- funny that they haven't responded to any of my past invitations (well, other than that "Cease and Desist" letter, but I'm pretty sure that was just a misunderstanding.)

I like to send them an invitation each year. I'm sure they think I'm a complete kook at this point, but I figure if I continue to send it, maybe one of these years they'll actually realize the enormous marketing potential of having their product associated with fine ice cream, and actually come with their entire crew of models.

Maybe they'll even see the remarkably funky colors of our parlor, and decide to do a photo shoot for their catalog. And maybe they'll decide that they need a chubby, goofy looking, middle-aged ice cream maker to help their models select just the right color of ice cream to compliment their skimpy lingerie outfits...

I can dream, can't I?

Prices

Just like everyone else, we've been hit with a lot of cost increases over the winter, and have been forced to raise our prices a bit to compensate. They're not on the menu boards yet, but will be soon.

As I'm sure most of you are aware from the price of milk in the supermarket, the ongoing grain shortage (gotta make our cars run on Ethanol!) has driven up the price of cattle feed, and the price of our base ice cream mix in turn.

The high price of oil has also driven up our prices on our cups, spoons, etc., which are all petroleum by-products. And, just about every distributor I have has started assessing a "Fuel Delivery Surcharge" on every order. (Maybe I should start assessing them a "Check Delivery Surcharge" each time I send in a payment to them...)

And with the weak US dollar, Europeans are buying up much of the California nut supply, as our price on walnuts has gone from $91 for a 25lb box to an eye-popping $174 -- and rising!

And, of course, our biggest expense, labor, has gone up, as those brave Massachusetts legislators bumped minimum wage up from $7.50 to $8.00 per hour -- up from $6.75 just a year ago. I'm sure that makes Senators Kennedy and Kerry happy, while they're holed up on their private yachts off the coast of their (Wind Farm Free) personal ocean front mansions, to know that these high schoolers all have enough money to pay for their cell phones and iTunes downloads.

(Yeah, I know, they're US senators, and have little to do with setting the Massachusetts minimum wage, but how can I resist taking a swipe at those two elitists? It embarrasses me to think that they represent me and the other hardworking Massachusetts citizens to the rest of the nation.)

Anyway, I've tried to keep the price increases in line with our costs, so hopefully we don't lose customers over them. I figure it's better to raise prices than to turn to the other option -- lowering our quality.

I've done some comparison shopping at other local stands, and I'm reasonably confident that we're somewhere in the fat part of the bell curve in terms of our pricing relative to others. (And I think our product is better, so you're getting a good value, all in all.)

Fan Club

This is a fun business, in that I'm continually surrounded by cute young girls (and a few goofy teenaged boys, but we'll ignore them for now.) I tell my friends that at my age, the only way I can get attractive women to talk to me is if I give them a job (or, serve them at the window.)

While we don't hire based on looks, we've definitely got our share of cute team members, both males and females, and they seem to attract some (mostly unwanted) attention from the occasional customer. The typical exchange at the end of the night as the kids divide up their tip pool is the comparison of the various lines that customers tried to feed them.

One night this week, I noticed a twelve or thirteen year old boy at the outside window, waiting for his order to be filled. It was a cool night, probably in the low 40's outside with a brisk breeze, and most of our customers were pretty happy to come in and order at the inside counter. He looked cold, and I poked my head out and asked him if he wanted to go inside to wait for his order, but he shook his head and told me "It's ok, it's not that cold, I'll just wait here."

As I continued to clean up, I noticed why he wasn't cold -- he was getting an eyeful of our serving team! Rachel was waiting on him, and she is definitely one of our cutest team members -- we've watched her grow from a shy awkward teen, into an absolutely beautiful, confident college student. It took her a while to prepare the three or four sundaes the lad had ordered. As she rang up his order, I heard her apologize to him for taking so long. He didn't say much, as I think his heart was stuck in his throat, as he looked at her like she was a goddess!

After he left, I kidded her "Rachel, you could have taken all night long to make those sundaes, and he wouldn't have complained a bit!"

Our Saturday night crew of Alex and Emily seem to always attract their share of attention as well. Emily had one creepy old guy tell her that he'd like her on top of his sundae, and had another visitor slip her his phone number, while Alex has one of our regular Saturday night visitors working on setting her up with their son. They love to complain about the attention, but I suspect they encourage at least some of it!

And even our goofiest boy, John, who I can no longer call a "goofy teen", as he's too old, managed to attact the attention of a group of young ladies. After filling their order, he found that one of them had written her phone number on his order slip, with "Call me" written below it.

One of my all time favorites, who has since moved on to a "real job" had the best story of all. One night a cocky lad was ogling Ashley as she worked. As he was leaving, he came to the window and asked me to hand her a note, which apparently had his name and phone number on it. I dutifully handed it to her. Ashley took a look at it, eyed the boy at the window, then ripped up the note and dropped it in the trash can, while coldly staring him down, while his friends hooted and hollered at him. We still tell that story and laugh about it today!

While I'm too old and grumpy to get much attention, I still surprise the kids once in a while. Last week, a group of "more mature" woman tipped me $9 after I scooped several quarts for them during a busy stretch. I don't keep tips myself, I put them in the kids' tip pool, but I made sure to let the girls know that I still can get a bit of attention, even if it was from a group old enough to be my mother!

Flavor News

I had one customer chastise me for not having Rum Raisin in stock -- she couldn't understand how we could not have such a popular flavor on hand.

I explained to her that we couldn't keep all of our flavors in stock during the slower winter and early spring months, as they wouldn't all stay as fresh as we like. So we let some of the less popular flavors fall off the end of our menu for a while.

"But I just ordered it here a week or two ago," she claimed, "and it was the best Rum Raisin I've ever had in my life!"

Guess she's not one of our steady winter customers, as from my recollection, we haven't made Rum Raisin since just before Christmas!

Anyway, we do have Rum Raisin in stock again, and although it's not one of my personal favorites, I'll bet this will be an especially good batch, as the raisins have been steeping in their winter rum bath in our cooler since that last time I made it, in December. I normally soak the raisins for a few days, but these should be "extra-rum-licious".

We've also been adding some of our other in-season favorites, so (off the top of my head) "Cherry Vanilla Chip", "Almond Joy", "Pistachio", and even "Black Walnut" should all be back on hand by the time you read this!

And, since it's getting warmer, we've started making sherbets again, so you can now enjoy Orange or Mango sherbet.

Staff News

"Can I have a job?"

"Can I have a job?"

"Can I have a job?"

"Can I have a job?"

"Can I have a job?"

"Can I have a job?"

It seems like I get asked that question constantly this time of year, and sometimes I think I know what it must feel like to be stalked by paparazzi. The applications are coming in fast and furious, and we're collecting them, but not actually hiring any new team members just yet.

We're still calling back members of last year's team, and haven't reached the point yet to where we'll need new additions. And with the returning kids all telling me that they want to work more hours, I'm not quite sure we'll have more than one or two open spots this summer anyway.

I have promised a couple of spots to the children of a few friends, but all of them are under 16, which means they can only work limited hours at this point, so we'll likely bring them in and train them in "the Mad Maggie's way" (It's easy: Smile. Be polite. Do your best to fill the orders quickly. Stay clean. Say "Thank you"), but they won't be eating up a ton of hours.

Late news: I did hire one college student who had previously worked at the Ben & Jerry's up the road in Bradford. She was one of their supervisors there, so I'm hoping she can teach me all the things we're doing wrong from a corporate viewpoint!

Newsletter Coupon

Since Spring is here, let's thumb our noses at Old Man Winter with a special on our "Nor'Easter" sundaes!

Now as every New Englander knows, a "Nor'Easter" is what we call a blizzard up here. Soft serve ice cream, with your choice of candies, or toppings mixed in, then topped with hot fudge, whipped cream, cherries, and nuts.

So, come on over to the store, tell us you're a newsletter reader (or print out this part of the newsletter and show it to us, if you absolutely have to have a coupon in your hands), and we'll give you one free Nor'Easter sundae with the purchase of one at the regular price.

Can't beat that for a deal, right?

OK, I've got a ton of ice cream to make, so that's going to have to do it for this week. Thanks for reading, and we sure hope to see you at the store soon!