Mitchell's Homemade Ice Cream just opened its seventh store in Avon on Thursday, Honey Hut Ice Cream is opening its seventh store in Brunswick this fall, and Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream has doubled its wholesale business to supermarkets over the past year.
View full sizeMitchell's Homemade Ice Cream just opened its seventh and largest store in Avon on Thursday, but it isn't the only Ohio retailer that's growing. Honey Hut Ice Cream is opening its seventh store in Brunswick this fall, and Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams has doubled its wholesale business to supermarkets over the past year. AVON, Ohio - Mitchell's Homemade Ice Cream founders Pete and Mike Mitchell decided three or four years ago that they wanted to open their next store in Avon.
Thursday morning, they finally made good on those plans, opening the doors to their seventh and largest ice cream shop in a stand-alone building located in front of Avon Commons Shopping Center on Detroit Road.
"Avon's a great community, very family-friendly, and we thought it was a nice fit for what we do, but the process of purchasing the land that we were on took way longer than we thought it would," Pete Mitchell said between customers at the new store.
It was a minor setback for a bustling business whose sales have grown 25 percent over the past year.
Besides its ice cream shops in Beachwood, Rocky River, Solon, Westlake, Strongsville and Huntington Beach in Bay Village, which opened last week, Mitchell's Homemade also supplies about 30 area grocery stores and about 35 local restaurants.
With the 25 new employees at the Avon store, Mitchell's now employs about 160 people, 75 percent of whom are part-time students.
But the Avon store won't be the brothers' last in 2012.
Within the next few weeks, they will finalize architectural drawings to convert a decrepit former Ohio City nightclub into what will eventually be their corporate offices, ice cream kitchen and eighth store.
They will hire 35 more people there.
They are also working on a ninth store in the University Circle neighborhood that will open before the end of the year.
Mitchell's, however, isn't the only Ohio ice cream shop that's growing.
Honey Hut Ice Cream, owned and run by the Page family since 1974, is opening its seventh ice cream shop in Brunswick this fall.
The other stores are in Cleveland, Brecksville, Parma, Strongsville, Solon, which opened last April, and Edgewater Beach, which opens Memorial Day weekend.
"We're growing slowly because we're not focused on (selling to) supermarkets or grocery stores," said President Bruce Page, who runs the business with his two sisters, two brothers and their children.
He said that now that the family has gotten a taste of the East Side with its Solon store, they're talking about other possibilities in neighboring suburbs.
"If the opportunity's right and if it's a good fit, we'll explore it," Page said.
Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, which opened its first Cleveland-area shop in Chagrin Falls last April, said it, too, is pondering additional stores here.
The 10-year-old Columbus company, whose signature flavors range from Riesling Poached Pear Sorbet to Wildberry Lavender, opened its ninth store in Nashville, Tenn., last June.
But its biggest growth has come from its wholesale business, said spokesman Aaron Beck. The number of supermarkets that sell its premium ice creams has more than doubled to 400 stores nationwide, from California to Connecticut.
Ohio is by far its biggest market, with retail outlets including Buehler's, Constantino's, Dave's, Fisher Foods, Heinen's, Miles Farmers Market, Mustard Seed Market and Zagara's Marketplace.
Back in Avon, Pete Mitchell won't say how much he paid for the land or 3,100-square-foot building in Avon, which includes 50 seats in the rotunda and another 30 on the patio.
But 13 years after he and his younger brother opened the first Mitchell's in Westlake, he said they'd established enough of a track record to borrow the money for another store.
Unlike the stores they lease, they got to design the Avon store from the ground up, even incorporating a toy train track that runs around the dining room ceiling into the site plans.
"It wasn't actually planned to all happen at the same time, but in order for us to be able to open a shop in Ohio City, we needed a new kitchen," Mitchell said.
After they renovate the former Moda nightclub, they will move the giant batch freezers that churn out their rich ice creams, frozen yogurts and sorbets out of the back of their Rocky River store.
Mitchell says the new kitchen, on West 25th Street a block away from the popular West Side Market, will more than double the capacity of the current one, with floor-to-ceiling windows to let customers watch the flavors being made from scratch.
"In the years to come, assuming we have the good fortune to remain part of the Cleveland community, there are a couple more place we're looking to build a shop in," he said.
The Cleveland Heights High School graduates have always wanted stores in the Heights, Lakewood and Hudson.
And how will they oversee all those extra stores?
"We have a sister, Ann Matuszny, who teaches special ed in the Cleveland schools," Mitchell said. "She's been clamoring to help out."
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