Four All Ice Cream has certainly made a splash in Waterloo Region since their opening in May 2017. The all-natural, locally sourced ice cream vendor always appears to have something new and exciting up their sleeves, the recent announcement of a new retail space being no exception.
Sit back and relax, because we are about to spill the cream on all things Four All.
“We opened up Four All about a year ago and our initial focus was that we are a manufacturer, we made ice cream and that was my original business plan that we make ice cream and we sold it to other people’s businesses. We weren’t retail focused,” Ajoa Mintah, owner and chief ice cream maker said.
“When we got the place set up, zoning did allow us to take 25 per cent of the square footage into retail which we did, and we had a very good experience with retail, initially. We didn’t really think people would come to the back of the Bonnie Stuart Building to hang out and eat ice cream,” Mintah said.
Based on the retail success, Four All has decided to branch out and offer people more of a retail store experience. However, they eventually hope to transition to two separate locations: a factory and a retail space.
Thus, with the second location, Four All is looking to expand their horizons beyond pints and cubes to enjoy at home. They want to become a more retail focused dessert utopia, offering more than a scoop in a cone, but a dessert experience to rival the competition.
“An opportunity came up with the owners of The Berlin, who are currently going through a re-branding themselves. But the owners of The Berlin approached us about Graffiti Market and they were looking for a business like us to [contribute] to that market place,” Mintah said.
Graffiti Market is going to be a market inside the Catalyst 137 building in Belmont Village and Four All’s new location is set to open inside the market by the beginning of July, depending on construction.
“We thought that was a great fit, and it also gave us an opportunity to build out our retail business,” Mintah said.
As for the current location, the tasting room will stay at their current location: 141 Whitney Place unit 105. But, Four All plans to open up the second location to expand their retail offering. The new retail space at Graffiti Market is completely devoted to retail only and has no manufacturing space.
“The retail space gives us the ability to offer more ice cream and comfort cones instead of being able only eight flavours at a time we can offer 12 flavours at any given time,” Mintah said.
Four All plans to not only offer cones and cups but donut sundaes and tacos.
“We’ve got a couple different ice cream sundaes planned, one of them is a fun one and we are hoping to work with Debrodniks Donuts,” Mintah said.
Four All plans to take advantage of the newly acquired space and continue to change the ice cream game, even more than they already have.
“I think retail is an unexpected surprise, our question mark here is what if we make it even more accessible and have even more to offer,” Mintah said.
“Our hope is that people will want more Four All.”
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