How we started an Italian Ice Business - Part Two

If you missed it, you can go back and read Part One.

During the pandemic, my wife convinced me to invest all our Covid cash into a commercial batch freezer. She wanted Italian ice and the only local shop had closed up. I remember doing some math and coming to the realization that we’d have to sell quite a few buckets of Italian Ice to even come close to making our money back on the batch freezer.

After we got a handful of recipes to a point where we thought they were pretty good, we decided to try sharing Italian Ice with our neighborhood. We got the kids involved and wheeled a chest freezer onto the front lawn with an extension cord. We set up a folding table and started trying to sell Italian Ice lemonade-stand-style in the front yard. I posted a picture on a local neighborhood Facebook group with an invitation to come try us out.

I couldn’t believe it, but people came.

After the first week, we had a crowd in our yard and a line down the street. The Italian ice was delicious but I think people were also really starving for connection after so much isolation. We had strangers from all over town sit with us for hours and visit and just be together. My elderly parents who lived nearby brought out some lawn chairs and made friends with people they never would have met otherwise.  It was heartwarming to see them be able to interact with people again like that. By the end of the summer, we were causing a traffic situation on our quiet street.

I lost my mom the following summer, but I can still feel her nearby on a summer night and I try to make friends with people I normally wouldn’t, the way she did so effortlessly.

By the end of that first summer, the business made back what we had spent on the batch freezer, plus enough to pay the kids a wage for helping out. That fall I found a 1970’s rust bucket of a horse trailer on Facebook marketplace and decided to buy it and convert it into a catering trailer for the business. I spent countless hours that winter stripping paint, grinding metal, and restoring the trailer into a fun concession trailer that we use for catering weddings and events in Idaho Falls.

People love the converted horse trailer and it’s now been to dozens of weddings and events in Idaho Falls, Rigby, Shelley, Blackfoot, and Rexburg. 

The following year, we continued to grow and purchased an old snow cone shack that also needed quite a bit of renovation. The shack allowed us to have a more permanent location and be open 6 days a week on a more regular schedule. We were able to hire some additional help, (our kids continue to work in the business) to help staff all of the shack shifts. Our friends at Idaho Falls Pediatrics have graciously allowed us to park the shack during the summer months near the playground behind their building at 3067 Eagle Dr, in Ammon. It’s the perfect little location and we try to keep the same “front-yard” vibe.

Today, the business has continued to grow. The kids love working in the business and always have ideas for new flavors. We continue to take the horse trailer to weddings and parties and to the Idaho Falls Farmers Market every Saturday in the summer months. We couldn’t be more grateful for the support of our community and customers that come and share a treat on a warm summer night.

If you would like to book Summer Nights Italian Ice for your wedding, party, or event in South East Idaho, give us a call at (208) 520-8488 or fill out the catering request form.