"I walk by the first Ample Hills every day to go to the supermarket, and it hurts. It doesn't go away, but the desire to do it again and to build a business again the right way, I think, is there."
"We didn't fail because people stopped liking the ice cream. Where he came up short was on the math. They built a $7 million factory and had to keep growing in order to pay for it, but they didn't have the capital to open more stores."
"All the 15 shops were profitable, but the factory's drag on the 15 shops was so great and so immediate that we declared bankruptcy. We couldn't close the factory because it was the only way we had to make ice cream."
Jackie Cuscuna and Brian Smith co-founded Ample Hills, a Brooklyn ice cream company that achieved rapid national success with innovative flavors and high-profile partnerships including Disney and Oprah Winfrey's endorsement. However, the couple overexpanded by building a $7 million factory without sufficient capital to support growth, leading to bankruptcy. Despite losing the business twice, they remain determined to build again. The couple is now launching Ramblin' Chick, a chicken burger restaurant in Carroll Gardens, representing their comeback attempt in a different industry.
#business-comeback #entrepreneurship #ample-hills-ice-cream #bankruptcy-and-recovery #restaurant-launch
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