Scoops & Stories: The Journey of Countertop Creamery

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:22

I'm Chris Lindstrom, and this is the food about town podcast, Rochester.

Travis Briggs: 00:03:27

Well, why Rochester?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:29

Chris Lindstrom was awaked.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:32

He was just so much fun.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:34

He never stopped talking.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:36

I mean, it was great.

Travis Briggs: 00:03:38

Here's a good idea.

Travis Briggs: 00:03:40

Have a point.

Travis Briggs: 00:03:42

It makes it so much more interesting for the listener.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:45

And we don't need any characters around to give the joint atmosphere.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:48

Is that clear?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:49

Cause I'm a pro.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:51

That's what pros do.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:52

I'm a professional.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:53

Look it up in the book.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:55

But now, yeah, I'm thinking.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:57

I'm back.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:03:59

And we are back with another episode of the Food about Town podcast.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:04:03

Thank you so much for joining.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:04:05

And I'm here with a guest.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:04:06

I've met him once or twice before, but I'm really fascinated to talk with him today.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:04:10

Guest, why don't you introduce yourself?

Guest: 00:04:12

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:04:12

Hi, my name is Travis Briggs.

Travis Briggs: 00:04:14

I am the owner and operator of Countertop Creamery.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:04:18

So, countertop Creamery, why don't you give the quick plug so people can follow you and see where you're going to be next?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:04:25

Then we're going to dive right in.

Travis Briggs: 00:04:26

Yeah, sure.

Travis Briggs: 00:04:27

So you can find us on all socials.

Travis Briggs: 00:04:30

Countertop creamery.

Travis Briggs: 00:04:32

My girlfriend Lily runs all the socials because I have no idea.

Travis Briggs: 00:04:36

But it's also countertopcreamery.com.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:04:38

Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:04:39

I mean, I gotta say, like, having, like, my wife is a graphic designer and an artist.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:04:44

Having her available for, like, oh, I need a logo.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:04:48

Like, oh, I get a full professional logo out of my house.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:04:52

And my partner in the podcast network, his partner designed the logo that's on our coasters and on the thing.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:05:00

What a delight is to have somebody who's better than you at many things around.

Travis Briggs: 00:05:05

Yes.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:05:07

So, yeah, so you got the countertop creamery.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:05:11

You're popping up all over Rochester.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:05:15

So let's dive in.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:05:16

So, one, what is countertop creamery, and why did you end up starting it?

Travis Briggs: 00:05:22

So, I'm originally from Saratoga Springs, New York.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:05:26

Okay.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:05:26

That's a fascinating place to grow up.

Travis Briggs: 00:05:29

It is.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:05:30

It's got to be really interesting to see, like, the summers get completely influxed with people in crazy hats, and the locals basically get abandoned to the dregs of Saratoga.

Travis Briggs: 00:05:44

Yeah, I mean, you just get really good at navigating back roads.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:05:49

Oh, God.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:05:49

I'd have to imagine, like, I remember camping in the Adirondacks as a kid.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:05:56

Our big vacation every year was camping in a state campground for two weeks every year, because that's the way we grew up.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:04

But we'd always read about the races.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:07

And there's always the article every year in the.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:11

What is it?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:12

Is it the Post Gazette?

Guest: 00:06:14

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:14

Out of.

Travis Briggs: 00:06:14

There's a few.

Travis Briggs: 00:06:16

There were more, but there's like the Times Union.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:19

Times union.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:20

That's what it is.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:21

And I always remember reading that article every year about those stupid hats.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:25

And I abhorred that article every year while we were on vacation.

Travis Briggs: 00:06:29

Yeah, I mean, there's.

Travis Briggs: 00:06:31

There's a lot of problematic things associated with all that.

Travis Briggs: 00:06:36

I mean, regarding the racing, I went.

Travis Briggs: 00:06:40

I've been to the actual races twice.

Travis Briggs: 00:06:43

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:06:43

And that's.

Travis Briggs: 00:06:44

That's the story of a lot of locals.

Travis Briggs: 00:06:46

It's just like, yeah, why?

Travis Briggs: 00:06:48

Why would I go?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:49

I mean, it's the same story.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:50

Like, I grew up in Buffalo, and I can't remember the last time I went to Niagara Falls.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:56

On purpose.

Guest: 00:06:56

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:57

Like, I remember going as a kid.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:06:59

I can't remember the last time I went.

Travis Briggs: 00:07:01

Yeah, you just don't want to subject yourself to that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:07:03

Just so many people.

Guest: 00:07:04

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:07:05

So.

Travis Briggs: 00:07:06

But aside from the racing, there's a lot of really good small dairies out there.

Travis Briggs: 00:07:13

So, you know, we'd hop in the family car and drive out to man's ice cream, which later on became the ice cream man.

Travis Briggs: 00:07:22

That was out in Schuylerville.

Travis Briggs: 00:07:24

There's King's Dairy, there's the dairy house.

Travis Briggs: 00:07:27

There's a bunch of other places.

Travis Briggs: 00:07:28

And they all made their ice cream in shop.

Travis Briggs: 00:07:31

And so you'd go there and it would just be really high quality.

Travis Briggs: 00:07:36

And not to mention you have Stewart's gas stations, which you wouldn't expect good ice cream from a gas station.

Travis Briggs: 00:07:42

But man, oh, man.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:07:44

And I gotta say, for, for the style of ice cream that it is and for those that aren't in, who haven't been up into the, you know, further, further upstate, the north country ish area of New York state, I would say it is certainly a better version of the, you know, the commercial high overrun ice creams on the market.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:08:06

It still lives in that world.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:08:07

This is not specialty ice cream.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:08:10

This isn't that level of stuff.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:08:12

But for like, comparative to all the super high overrun stuff and the ultra commercial things, it's pretty good.

Guest: 00:08:20

Yeah, yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:08:21

And I mean, they're kind of like benevolent overlords.

Travis Briggs: 00:08:26

Like, there's, there's Stewart's that on a four corners.

Travis Briggs: 00:08:29

They are on two of the corners.

Travis Briggs: 00:08:31

And just everybody's okay with it.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:08:32

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:08:33

You don't.

Travis Briggs: 00:08:33

We don't really have a 711.

Travis Briggs: 00:08:35

We don't really have Cumberland farm.

Travis Briggs: 00:08:36

It's like only Stewart's and everybody's okay.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:08:39

With it, and that maroon color is burned into your brain forever.

Guest: 00:08:43

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:08:44

So, basically, I grew up having a plethora of options when it came to, like, really high quality ice cream.

Travis Briggs: 00:08:51

And I've just always been a person who wanted to figure out how to do things myself, so started making ice cream using a machine that my dad gave me from a yard sale.

Travis Briggs: 00:09:05

It was, like, literally just a hand crank in a wood bucket with the.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:09:09

Ice and the ice and the salt.

Travis Briggs: 00:09:11

Ice and the salt, yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:09:12

And so I did that a couple times in college.

Travis Briggs: 00:09:15

We did a bunch of stuff like that in college, like making furniture, making maple syrup.

Travis Briggs: 00:09:19

And then, you know, naturally, pandemic happened.

Travis Briggs: 00:09:24

A lot of free time, and just kind of experimented with it.

Travis Briggs: 00:09:30

Gave some to some friends.

Travis Briggs: 00:09:32

They gave it to their friends and then had random people texting me, asking me if I had ice cream.

Travis Briggs: 00:09:41

Fast forward.

Travis Briggs: 00:09:42

Then I'm, like, serving pints out of my front door of my house.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:09:47

So let's take a step back.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:09:49

So when you were starting to make it and starting to ramp up.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:09:53

Right.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:09:53

So you had tested in the past, and you're starting to make again.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:09:57

How were you?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:09:58

And this isn't always about, you know, isn't always about equipment that we care about, but I love the process of learning how to make things.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:10:06

So what equipment were you using when you were restarting back in, you know, during the pandemic?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:10:12

In: 2020

Chris Lindstrom: 00:10:13

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:10:13

So I literally still had that hand crank button.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:10:16

Oh, that's awesome.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:10:16

I love that.

Travis Briggs: 00:10:17

And I did that for about four batches, and that got really old.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:10:23

And your ice machine was, like, screaming at you.

Travis Briggs: 00:10:26

I mean, at that point, I had to go and get, like, bags of ice.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:10:30

Yeah, you're buying.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:10:31

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:10:31

And then I would like.

Travis Briggs: 00:10:32

Cause you can't fit full pieces of ice in the bucket, so you had to blend it first, and then.

Travis Briggs: 00:10:38

Yeah, that was just a mess.

Travis Briggs: 00:10:40

But luckily, my girlfriend's grandmother buys a lot of things on QVC and just started, like, sending us ice cream machines.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:10:51

Awesome.

Travis Briggs: 00:10:52

Yeah, kind of.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:10:54

My grandma had the same kind of problem.

Travis Briggs: 00:10:57

I don't.

Travis Briggs: 00:10:57

Yeah, yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:10:58

So.

Travis Briggs: 00:11:02

So, basically, I was working with these machines that would spit out, like, a pint of ice cream at a time.

Travis Briggs: 00:11:09

And I'm like, you know, taking up all the counter space in our kitchen.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:11:13

Were these ones that had compressors inside or were.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:11:15

You had to freeze?

Travis Briggs: 00:11:16

I never had to freeze.

Travis Briggs: 00:11:17

Okay, so they always had compressors.

Travis Briggs: 00:11:19

But I started with, like, the just gives out a pint, and then I got to one that gives out like, three pints.

Travis Briggs: 00:11:26

And then I bought, like, two of those, and I was doing, like, six pints of.

Travis Briggs: 00:11:30

And if you, like, look at the Google street view for my house, it's literally a picture of me.

Travis Briggs: 00:11:38

Like, the car was going by as I was handing out, like, a pint of ice cream to somebody.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:11:44

That's got to be the absolute best street view thing you can possibly get.

Guest: 00:11:49

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:11:49

And then I saw it.

Travis Briggs: 00:11:50

So, like, it's like, me.

Travis Briggs: 00:11:52

One picture is me handing it off, and then the next one is, like, me waving it off.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:11:57

It's like an old school.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:11:58

Like, when you put the little paper thing of, like, photos in that you had to, like, click the viewfinder just looking at you.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:12:05

Hi, I'm doing a business.

Guest: 00:12:06

Hi.

Guest: 00:12:07

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:12:09

And then it got to the point where we had, like, so many strangers showing up to our house that I was like.

Travis Briggs: 00:12:19

And we even had people showing up, like, I don't see the business.

Travis Briggs: 00:12:21

Like, where's the business?

Travis Briggs: 00:12:22

And we're like, oh, no, this.

Travis Briggs: 00:12:23

It's literally a house.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:12:25

I don't know anything about that.

Travis Briggs: 00:12:26

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:12:27

So, you know, just having, like, strangers show up to it.

Travis Briggs: 00:12:31

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:12:32

I mean, yes.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:12:33

arted things like that during: 2020

Chris Lindstrom: 00:12:39

I remember going to.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:12:42

I think it was.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:12:43

Man, I think it was one of the doughboys houses when they were doing the neapolitan pizza pop ups.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:12:48

I remember going out there.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:12:49

They were popping up in people's driveways doing that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:12:51

And, yeah, I mean, we run this out of my house, and, you know, part of that is like, you want to start something, and you can just start something now, and if there's enough demand, then, yeah, you can do something more.

Guest: 00:13:04

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:13:04

So then it got to the point where.

Travis Briggs: 00:13:07

Cause I always want to do things above board.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:13:11

Sure.

Travis Briggs: 00:13:11

It got to the point where I was like, man, if the Department of Health finds out about this, they could probably just bury me into the ground.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:13:20

If they wanted to, I would say.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:13:21

So.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:13:22

Yes.

Travis Briggs: 00:13:23

I.

Travis Briggs: 00:13:25

I had my girlfriend Lily reach out to pop rock, which was a cereal bar in Rochester, and they were doing, like, for a while, they were doing this, like, co op thing.

Travis Briggs: 00:13:40

So I literally just had her dm them like, hey, I heard you guys are, like, a co op space.

Travis Briggs: 00:13:47

I'm doing this.

Travis Briggs: 00:13:48

Can I use your kitchen when you're not using it?

Travis Briggs: 00:13:51

And they're like, yeah, that hasn't been a thing for, like, a year, but if you want to, like, come in and chat, we can, like, figure it out anyways.

Travis Briggs: 00:13:59

And so go in, talk with Jason, who's a great guy, you know, loves everything.

Travis Briggs: 00:14:07

Rochester, and really of the people, for the people.

Travis Briggs: 00:14:09

And he said, yeah, man, that sounds good.

Travis Briggs: 00:14:15

And I was like, I literally don't have any money to pay you rent.

Travis Briggs: 00:14:18

A.

Travis Briggs: 00:14:19

And he's like, well, we have ice cream on our menu.

Travis Briggs: 00:14:22

What if you just pay your rent and ice cream?

Travis Briggs: 00:14:25

And I was like, sounds great.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:14:28

And was that at the.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:14:29

The Euclid location?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:14:30

Was that over on?

Travis Briggs: 00:14:31

That was at Euclid.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:14:32

Okay.

Travis Briggs: 00:14:33

So.

Travis Briggs: 00:14:33

And that's.

Travis Briggs: 00:14:34

That's still where I operate or, like.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:14:36

Make my stuff at shout out to AM FM.

Travis Briggs: 00:14:40

Shout out to AM FM.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:14:41

You know, Wade Reed, part of the Lunchroom podcast network, on the level up podcast, talking about coffee things.

Guest: 00:14:48

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:14:49

Should be an episode coming out soon where Aaron and I were tasting this fantastic decaf coffee from ditartiginale in Florence, Italy.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:14:59

So, yeah, I went over during some of the soft open stuff, and I really like the direction that place is going.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:15:07

I'm excited to see where it goes.

Guest: 00:15:08

Yeah, yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:15:09

And obviously still working out a lot of the kinks.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:15:12

Oh, yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:15:13

Which happens during a long, long phase.

Travis Briggs: 00:15:16

Soft opening.

Travis Briggs: 00:15:17

But, um, yeah, basically just.

Travis Briggs: 00:15:20

I was producing x number of gallons a week for Jason and pop rock, and that was paying my rent.

Travis Briggs: 00:15:30

And, yeah, that's.

Travis Briggs: 00:15:32

That's pretty much how countertop creamery got to the level that it's at today.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:15:36

That's awesome.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:15:37

So, right now, are you still using those kind of equipments?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:15:40

Have you upgraded to.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:15:42

Are you using, like, a commercial ice cream maker at this point?

Travis Briggs: 00:15:45

So I'm using a.

Travis Briggs: 00:15:47

A vivor or vever vivor ice cream machine.

Travis Briggs: 00:15:53

It can take in about three quarts and spit out, like, you know, again, anywhere from a gallon to a gallon and a half.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:16:03

Okay.

Travis Briggs: 00:16:04

Still super small for what I'm doing, and it takes forever because it's air cooled, but.

Travis Briggs: 00:16:09

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:16:12

I've Eric Nagel, who owns the space of Am Fm, and I've.

Travis Briggs: 00:16:22

We have a deal reached so that we can kind of take the next step as far as machinery goes.

Travis Briggs: 00:16:27

And.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:16:28

Oh, that's awesome that I'm not just.

Travis Briggs: 00:16:29

Like, doing batches all day.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:16:32

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:16:32

Because the repetition of that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:16:34

And it's one of those, um, I kind of see it as.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:16:39

It's also analogous to the way coffee roasting is in many ways.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:16:43

You know, when you have the larger batch size, things act differently, too.

Guest: 00:16:46

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:16:46

So they act differently, they freeze differently.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:16:49

None of it's the same.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:16:51

And you have to almost relearn your process every time you switch equipment.

Travis Briggs: 00:16:55

And that happened when I went from those two, like, three pint machines to the one three quart machine.

Travis Briggs: 00:17:07

Definitely had to change some stuff with the recipe to make it creamier and keep the same consistency, because that's really the thing that distinguishes me from some of the other ice cream businesses in town, is that I and others generally find the texture of my ice cream to be a lot smoother.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:17:26

So let's talk about texture.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:17:30

So that's something I've always loved paying attention to, is how do you get that luxurious, rich texture without it being overly fatty?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:17:41

Where your mouth feels coated in a buttery way, where it's churned incorrectly.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:17:46

How do you get it where you're not getting large ice crystals that are just unpleasant in the mouth or crunchy in a way you're not expecting?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:17:55

It's.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:17:55

There's so many different variables, but what's the kind of texture that you're shooting for?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:18:02

And I used the term overrun earlier.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:18:04

I'll just using detailed terminology for everybody on here, which is really referring to the amount of air that is in a product.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:18:15

So you might start with a certain amount of liquid volume and then the amount of overruns, kind of the added volume that is being added with churned air into that, which, to a point, is necessary, because if it's.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:18:28

If it has no overrun, it's gonna be so dense.

Guest: 00:18:32

Yep.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:18:32

You need air in there because you want it to melt on your tongue.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:18:35

You want that texture.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:18:37

But how do you work through all those things to get the texture of the on?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:18:41

What is the texture that you want?

Travis Briggs: 00:18:43

So my goal with the texture is to have the highest butterfat content that I can have while not leaving your mouth coated.

Travis Briggs: 00:18:55

And that, in and of itself, guards against the iciness.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:18:59

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:18:59

You know, so a lot of times where you run into the iciness issue is you're not using enough butter fat, because that's the expensive stuff.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:19:09

Well, and fat, by definition, doesn't freeze crystallized in the same way that water and other things do.

Guest: 00:19:16

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:19:17

So it ends up that different texture.

Guest: 00:19:19

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:19:19

So, and there's.

Travis Briggs: 00:19:20

There's a couple other tricks that I've found that help with that.

Travis Briggs: 00:19:28

And it was pretty cool that I've developed this recipe that I really like.

Travis Briggs: 00:19:34

And then my mom got a masterclass subscription, and Jenny from Jenny's ice cream is on there, and she does a whole episode on how to make ice cream at home.

Travis Briggs: 00:19:48

It was crazy that it was almost like my recipe to a tea.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:19:51

I love that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:19:52

And I think that's experimentation though.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:19:56

And if you're paying attention to details, so many people might come to a similar conclusion, because in the end, that result and what they're able to achieve as a higher volume commercial product is really good.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:20:15

And, you know, some people don't like the dairy stuff on their side because it's grass fed.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:20:21

It's grass fed milk, and it does have a very specific grass fed milk taste.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:20:27

I think it's fantastic because it's doing something that other people aren't doing, that it provides that contrast to the other parts of rich flavors and the sweetness, but it's not for everybody.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:20:40

And it has a unique texture.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:20:41

Yeah, but at the same point, when you get to the right thing, you get that creaminess that melts in your mouth.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:20:47

That's hard to resist, isn't it?

Guest: 00:20:48

Yeah.

Guest: 00:20:49

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:20:49

And it's.

Travis Briggs: 00:20:50

I mean, that being said, I'm not batting a thousand with it.

Travis Briggs: 00:20:55

There's definitely some batches that, you know, I add some ingredient to it and it just, like, throws off the fat content, throws off the water structure or whatever, and I just end up with something that's pretty, pretty icy.

Travis Briggs: 00:21:10

I haven't felt.

Travis Briggs: 00:21:11

I haven't figured out a good way to deal with that yet.

Travis Briggs: 00:21:16

If and when I do get a brick and mortar, I'd love to have, like, you know, a bargain bin, like, not our best work, but still enjoyable kind of, kind of thing, you know, just for a couple bucks.

Travis Briggs: 00:21:29

And you can.

Travis Briggs: 00:21:30

You can go in there and grab something that's edible.

Travis Briggs: 00:21:35

Yeah, but, I mean, the flavors are.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:21:37

Still gonna be good.

Guest: 00:21:37

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:21:38

Just not up to.

Travis Briggs: 00:21:39

Up to my standard.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:21:40

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:21:40

Because I.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:21:41

I mean, I've had, you know, over the years, so many different producers of things, and I.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:21:48

Sometimes it's hard to remember, you know, the good stuff and the really good stuff.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:21:52

I remember the superlative things, and I remember just the dregs of.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:21:58

The dregs of texture and the dregs of taste.

Guest: 00:22:01

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:22:01

Like, I remember so vividly.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:22:04

I think we were in San Francisco, and there was a place that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:22:08

That was doing.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:22:10

They were doing, like, the gimmick flavors.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:22:12

They did a salt and pepper ice cream, but it really didn't have sugar in it, and it was awful.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:22:18

It was not edible whatsoever.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:22:20

Yeah, I remember there was a local producer that they had done a coffee ice cream, and they left the grounds in it.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:22:30

And when you're biting into the ice cream, you bit into coffee grounds.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:22:34

And it was wildly unpleasant.

Travis Briggs: 00:22:36

Yeah, I've heard.

Travis Briggs: 00:22:39

Or, well, actually, my mom sent me a picture of one coffee ice cream that had the grounds.

Travis Briggs: 00:22:44

Still, I could imagine that using chocolate covered espresso beans could actually be pretty pleasant.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:22:50

Sure.

Travis Briggs: 00:22:51

But I work so hard to get this creamy texture.

Travis Briggs: 00:22:56

Why would I throw, like, literal grounds into the ice cream, right?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:23:02

Like, I get steeping coffee to try and extract your coffee flavors.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:23:05

And that makes a lot of sense.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:23:07

But you know what?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:23:09

It's so challenging.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:23:10

And that's where, like, I love.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:23:13

I love the consistency of giant producers.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:23:16

So, like, one of those amazing things is, like, when you taste something where you're like, I can't picture how this works to get, like, the texture of pretzels that isn't, like, frozen and waterlogged inside of a product that's not coated.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:23:32

I'm like, how in the hell did they do that?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:23:35

It's amazing because I've had ones with pretzels inside.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:23:38

They're just like, I can't even bite into this.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:23:41

It's making me cringe.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:23:43

It's making me shudder with bad texture.

Guest: 00:23:46

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:23:46

And so speaking of talking about Stewart's earlier, my favorite ice cream growing up was crumbs along the mohawk.

Travis Briggs: 00:23:54

It's a Graham cracker ice cream, graham cracker pieces, and caramel swirl.

Travis Briggs: 00:23:59

And they have these pieces in there that I just, like, have been working so hard to replicate in my own ice cream.

Travis Briggs: 00:24:07

And then I just get to a point where it's like, what am I willing to put in this food to make it do the things that I want to do?

Travis Briggs: 00:24:18

And then it starts making me question, you know, what are they doing to do that?

Travis Briggs: 00:24:25

You know?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:24:26

Absolutely.

Travis Briggs: 00:24:26

And it's like, yeah, well, it is.

Travis Briggs: 00:24:28

It is fun to eat, but knowing the science behind, it's like, man, I really don't know how they're doing that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:24:36

Right.

Travis Briggs: 00:24:37

To a scary.

Travis Briggs: 00:24:38

To us, like a feared level.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:24:40

Yeah, well, and also.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:24:42

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:24:42

Like, what kind of.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:24:43

What kind of stabilizing did you need to do?

Guest: 00:24:45

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:24:45

How is it really made?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:24:47

It's not really the same thing anymore because it has to be made to be durable when in the process, do you put it in and all that stuff?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:24:56

So I think what I want to do to finish off before we go to break, kind of want to talk through launching the actual business.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:25:06

What was the impetus to take it from doing it in the house and selling to friends and everything else?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:25:13

What was the impetus to actually start this as a business?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:25:16

Because I'm assuming you're still working a day job and everything else.

Travis Briggs: 00:25:19

Well, actually, yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:25:22

So I was teaching at Rush Henrietta High School math teacher for five years.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:25:28

Shout out to math teachers appreciate you.

Guest: 00:25:30

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:25:31

So for a plethora of different reasons, both my fault and on the other side of things, I didn't end up getting tenure there, which, generally speaking, you know, if you're not getting tenure about two years in.

Travis Briggs: 00:25:50

Yeah, three years in.

Travis Briggs: 00:25:52

So wasn't given tenure and really didn't know where I wanted to go.

Travis Briggs: 00:25:58

Cause I was ready to give my life to that school and felt really heartbroken by it and kind of picked up the ice cream thing during that time.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:26:07

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:26:08

And then, you know, money issues ran in, so.

Travis Briggs: 00:26:13

And I was like, well, I'm not really ready to give up teaching.

Travis Briggs: 00:26:16

Maybe it just was like the suburbs.

Travis Briggs: 00:26:18

That wasn't really my thing.

Travis Briggs: 00:26:19

So I taught at UPrEp for two years, which is an all boys charter school in the city.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:26:26

Mm hmm.

Travis Briggs: 00:26:27

And basically was doing the ice cream.

Travis Briggs: 00:26:31

You know, at night, I'd teach all day and then go in the kitchen until, like, midnight.

Travis Briggs: 00:26:40

And then that reached a certain point where I didn't have enough energy for the students.

Travis Briggs: 00:26:45

So, actually, this.

Travis Briggs: 00:26:47

This spring, I did not renew my contract, and I'm all in on ice cream now.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:26:53

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:26:53

There's.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:26:54

There's something about getting thrown for a loop like that that makes you take a step back and think about.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:27:02

Think about one.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:27:03

Where.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:27:03

Where do you want to end up?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:27:05

And it does make you think about the next thing differently.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:27:10

You know, when you ended up, you know, at a charter school, too, and then you get different experiences working different environments, and I'm sure you kept on coming in your head that there's.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:27:22

What is.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:27:22

What's the next thing?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:27:23

Where.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:27:23

Where am I ending up?

Guest: 00:27:25

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:27:25

Because, I mean, I've always been a perfectionist.

Travis Briggs: 00:27:29

I've always been somebody who's success oriented, and, you know, being able to have things that I can go, that I can say, yes, I was successful because x, y, and z.

Travis Briggs: 00:27:41

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:27:42

And I was able to get that for a long time at Rush and then wasn't able to, because, you know, at the end of it, wasn't successful.

Travis Briggs: 00:27:52

And then similarly, at UPrep, you know, being able to define success in challenging environments where you got to just take your wins as you get them, that was really difficult.

Travis Briggs: 00:28:08

So I knew that I needed to put myself in an environment where I define my own levels of success.

Travis Briggs: 00:28:19

You know, I know when I've made a good.

Travis Briggs: 00:28:21

A good flavor of ice cream or done, sold a certain amount or reached in a certain number of followers, so on and so forth.

Travis Briggs: 00:28:31

So being able to work to my own level and define my own success that's been really helpful.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:28:40

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:28:42

I've been thinking about.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:28:43

I've been thinking a lot recently.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:28:45

I haven't come to a conclusion yet, but I've been thinking a lot recently about failure.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:28:52

Not in a negative way, about being okay.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:28:56

Being okay with shooting for something and not hitting where you're hoping to be.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:29:04

I apologize.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:29:05

This is, like, a completely self indulgent question.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:29:08

As somebody who was planning on being a career teacher, how did that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:29:15

How does that hit you, not continuing to do that?

Guest: 00:29:18

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:29:19

I mean, I wanted to be a teacher since I was in 11th grade.

Travis Briggs: 00:29:23

I did an internship program my senior year of high school, working down at the middle school, teaching.

Travis Briggs: 00:29:31

I think if you.

Travis Briggs: 00:29:35

And I used to tell my students this, you know, like, if you are working towards success, failure is a part of that.

Travis Briggs: 00:29:43

You will inherently hit roadblocks.

Travis Briggs: 00:29:47

You will get questions wrong.

Travis Briggs: 00:29:48

You will, like, if you are stressing yourself to be the best version of yourself, you will invariably fail.

Travis Briggs: 00:29:58

But every failure is a learning experience.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:01

You know, I learned a lot about myself by failing in those environments.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:09

You know, I.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:10

There was.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:12

It was a quote that I heard, and they heard it from somebody else, but it was one of the great f.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:17

One drivers or coaches, and he basically said, I've never learned anything from a win.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:24

You don't.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:25

You don't learn anything from winning.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:27

You learn when you lose, and you learn when something doesn't go right and you go, okay, what went wrong?

Travis Briggs: 00:30:34

How can I adjust?

Travis Briggs: 00:30:36

And how can I make this better?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:30:38

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:38

And it's the same thing.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:39

And so now, on a day to day basis, if something doesn't go right in the kitchen or something doesn't go right with the cart, it's just constant problem solving.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:48

So you can't view failure as a bad thing.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:52

It's.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:52

It's natural.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:54

You just have to go.

Travis Briggs: 00:30:58

Just take it as a learning opportunity.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:31:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:31:02

So I appreciate you.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:31:03

Appreciate you answering, because it's.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:31:05

Yeah, it's a.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:31:06

It's something I think we all struggle with in one way or another.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:31:10

And just something I want to integrate more into the show as I continue is not just that, but, like, these.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:31:16

These are the fun opportunities we have to talk about.

Travis Briggs: 00:31:20

Yeah, that's why we're here.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:31:21

Talk about these, you know, sometimes challenging subjects as part of things.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:31:25

But I think we're do.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:31:27

We're gonna go to break.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:31:28

We're gonna taste.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:31:29

Taste a couple flavors, and we're gonna talk more about making ice cream with countertop creamery.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:32:34

And we're back with the second half of our discussion with countertop creamery.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:32:39

And I got a spoon in front of me, I got some pints in front of me, and I'm gonna taste a few things.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:32:45

And I want you to kind of.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:32:47

Let's talk through some of the flavors.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:32:49

And some of these are going to be pretty straightforward, classic combination.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:32:53

Some of them are a little bit different when it comes to ice cream flavors, but kind of culinary flavors.

Travis Briggs: 00:32:59

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:32:59

So I'm excited to talk through some of these and, like, maybe get into a little of the development and some of the pitfalls when you are working through this.

Travis Briggs: 00:33:07

Yeah, sure.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:33:08

So first one I've got in front of me is campfire.

Guest: 00:33:11

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:33:12

So this is campfire vibes.

Travis Briggs: 00:33:13

This is our flagship flavor.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:33:17

Ooh, interesting.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:33:18

Right away, like, the aroma is kind of that rich, creamy cinnamon almost plays like this.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:33:27

You know, it kind of smells to me, like when you're making, like, a carrot cake or a raisin, like a raisin kind of bread, it has that raisiny, like, rich, almost like fruit vegetal smell in a really pleasant way.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:33:39

Like a carrot cake with raisins in it and spices.

Guest: 00:33:43

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:33:43

So that started with me trying to copycat crumbs along the mohawk from Stewart's because it's a graham cracker base ice cream.

Travis Briggs: 00:33:56

And then, you know, it's that thing of be the change you want to see in the world.

Travis Briggs: 00:34:01

I hated when I'd buy a s'mores anything, and it wouldn't have toasted marshmallow.

Travis Briggs: 00:34:08

It'd just be like regular marshmallow.

Travis Briggs: 00:34:10

So I double scorch.

Travis Briggs: 00:34:13

I, like, spread out an entire jar of fluff on a sheet pan, go through and scorch it once and make it absolutely black.

Travis Briggs: 00:34:21

Spread it all in, and then scorch it again and make it gold so you get both of those flavor profiles.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:34:27

I'm so disappointed you're not making all your own marshmallows yet.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:34:31

It's a lot of work to make, to make that fresh every time, by the way.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:34:35

Yeah, it's definitely doable, but, like, making your own, like, you know, proper, like, marshmallow style meringue and toasting it and mixing in, getting the right texture is wild.

Guest: 00:34:45

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:34:46

And that's the thing with that flavor, especially, like, you know, the graham cracker pieces all from scratch, cutting them up into little tiny pieces, making sure they don't stick together, baking them, sugar coating them.

Travis Briggs: 00:34:58

And then the chocolate pieces, you know, same thing.

Travis Briggs: 00:35:01

Spread all the chocolate out on a sheet pan, cut it up into really small pieces, and serve it that way.

Travis Briggs: 00:35:08

So that one's our best seller.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:35:12

It's weird how much the nose.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:35:15

So everybody on here, but I do judging with spirits sometimes, and sometimes the nose is disconnected from the flavor to a point.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:35:25

It's weird how all those flavors combine in the nose where you can smell these different things, because now, having tasted it, it is pretty straightforward that it is that toasted marshmallow and the graham and the chocolate, but it evokes those creamy, rich, almost fruit notes on the nose.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:35:46

And I love that I'm getting something different on the nose.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:35:48

Aim on the palate.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:35:49

It makes you want to go back for the next.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:35:52

I don't know how many people smell their ice cream, but I try to smell everything.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:35:56

Cause I think you get something different by taking a second.

Guest: 00:35:58

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:35:58

So that's really enjoying it.

Travis Briggs: 00:36:00

That's also part of our thing, is kind of having experience with the ice cream.

Travis Briggs: 00:36:04

So that ice cream comes with a flaming marshmallow on top, and, you know, so I hand it to you flaming, and then you blow it out and you're instantly hit with this puff of marshmallow smoke.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:36:19

So how do you, how do you feel about, how do you feel about the taste in the pint versus that experience with the smoke and everything else?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:36:30

Have you thought about adjusting to maybe give it that wisp of smoke in there?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:36:36

Or is it like you want that experience to be special when you're at the cart?

Travis Briggs: 00:36:40

Yeah, so I definitely want the experience to be special.

Travis Briggs: 00:36:44

The tough part with the pints is that it's a whole nother regulatory body.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:36:49

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:36:50

And right now, I literally have to scoop out hard ice cream and pack it into a pint.

Travis Briggs: 00:36:55

So, like, this is the ice cream that I scoop out four people at a, at a pop up, and I just pack it into a pint because I can't put it in as soft ice cream and layer it that way.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:37:13

Oh, interesting.

Guest: 00:37:14

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:37:14

Really, really frustrating.

Travis Briggs: 00:37:16

And I have a bruised bone in my wrist from, like, scooping and doing that so much.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:37:22

I mean, there's something, I mean, I've been around the coffee industry, not in for a long time.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:37:27

I mean, how many people in the industry, because of, like, bad layouts or other things, have repetitive injuries from tamping espresso shots?

Guest: 00:37:38

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:37:39

Because it's force.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:37:40

And if you don't, like, properly stack your joints and work on efficiency, people get different repetitive injuries.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:37:48

They'll get, you know, tennis elbow, they'll get, you know, tendonitis, they'll get other things like that just from that repetition.

Guest: 00:37:54

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:37:56

So that's definitely a frustration with, I would imagine, regulation.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:01

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:38:02

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:02

But, you know, when in the future, if I do, you know, when I do get those certifications.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:07

I bought a little smoker I theoretically could for the ones that are going into pints.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:13

Add a little smoke in the.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:38:15

Smoke the marshmallow a little bit.

Guest: 00:38:16

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:17

Or even when it's churning in the machine.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:38:19

Oh, smoke the cream.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:20

Yeah, smoke the cream that way.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:38:22

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:24

But, yeah, it's.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:25

It's all fun.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:26

I'm.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:27

I'm down to try anything.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:38:28

That's awesome.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:38:29

So speaking of.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:38:31

So I've got maple mornings in front of me, and I'm smelling coffee right away.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:36

Yes.

Guest: 00:38:37

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:37

So this is, um, it's coffee ice cream with a homemade maple frosting swirl.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:38:44

Okay.

Travis Briggs: 00:38:45

And here, I'll let you try it first and then see what you think.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:38:52

The maple really does come out.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:38:54

I just tasted that little bit because I saw that I'm like, I did a freeze.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:38:58

Weird.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:38:59

Like, oh, it's got a swirl.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:01

And that's very interesting.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:03

Tastes like it almost has.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:05

Am I tasting pepper in there, too?

Travis Briggs: 00:39:06

No, just maple.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:08

Okay.

Travis Briggs: 00:39:08

Yeah, it's.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:10

It's always interesting, you know, from one tiny taste.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:13

Like, what are the things that are going to come out in your palate?

Guest: 00:39:16

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:24

So texture is very nice.

Guest: 00:39:25

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:26

This one has a different kind of density than the last one.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:31

Finish is really nice.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:34

I mean, it definitely evokes that creamy, intense coffee flavor.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:40

And the coffee flavor is, like, really solid.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:44

Yeah, it's real solid coffee flavor.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:47

It's hard to evoke specialty coffee as much in.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:53

In an ice cream.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:39:55

It's something I found as I tried to make a coffee liqueur, that you can make something that doesn't have faults, but specialty coffee flavor is very volatile.

Guest: 00:40:07

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:40:08

It degrades chemically, very quickly.

Guest: 00:40:11

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:40:12

Not just with oxidation, but actually chemically degrades as it goes.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:40:16

You can't maintain that forever.

Travis Briggs: 00:40:18

Yeah, this is rich, actually vegan.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:40:21

Oh, is it really?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:40:22

Yeah, I guess the texture turned out great.

Travis Briggs: 00:40:25

Coconut oat milk.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:40:27

Oh, that makes sense for coffee and this flavor.

Guest: 00:40:30

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:40:30

So when I do my.

Travis Briggs: 00:40:32

Do our vegan flavors, um, I use oat milk.

Travis Briggs: 00:40:36

Cause I'm like, if I'm gonna put in the energy to come up with a vegan ice cream, I want everybody to be able to have it and not somebody walk up and be like, oh, is this.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:40:47

I'm allergic to nuts, but texture is very good.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:40:51

Um, as somebody who is nominally vegan for a long time, um, you know, I still taste things because you have to, you know, keep fresh on things, but texture is really nice.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:41:04

And there's something about, like, that flavor does work really well here because that, you know, oats, that almost toasty, grain like flavor works really well with maple and coffee.

Guest: 00:41:18

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:41:19

Very complementary flavors.

Guest: 00:41:20

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:41:22

Really enjoying that.

Travis Briggs: 00:41:23

It, um.

Travis Briggs: 00:41:23

It can definitely be difficult to hide the oat milk flavor sometimes.

Travis Briggs: 00:41:27

That's why I haven't done a vegan vanilla, because I'm just too intimidated by, you know, trying to mask that because I would want it to be its own thing.

Travis Briggs: 00:41:39

I wouldn't want it to be trying to be something that it's not.

Travis Briggs: 00:41:45

You know, with chocolate, you can hide it really well.

Travis Briggs: 00:41:49

But if I were to make a vegan vanilla with my recipe, people would be comparing it to a traditional vanilla, and I wouldn't want that.

Travis Briggs: 00:41:58

I would want them to accept it for what it is.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:42:00

You'd almost have to work with vanilla as a core flavor of it, but change it to be something different, where you're highlighting vanilla as the dominant flavor, but there's something else to distract's not the right word, but it is, like, you're distracting from, because vanilla has that delicate in the best way, a delicate, floral, complex flavor.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:42:27

Or it can be, you know, you know, awful typical vanilla extract where it tastes like generic, nothing.

Guest: 00:42:34

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:42:35

But villain.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:42:35

Its best form is delicate.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:42:38

It works with dairy really well, where you almost have to, like, get too much of it in there and then balance it with something else, whether it be something toasty or something brighten to.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:42:52

Almost.

Travis Briggs: 00:42:52

Smoked vanilla would be really good with the oat.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:42:55

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:42:55

Like smoked vanilla and maybe a little bit of citrus.

Guest: 00:42:58

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:42:58

You know, something to amp up and almost distract from that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:43:03

Like, not like caramelized citrus or, like, citrus rind, but something to.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:43:08

Something to pop that toasted note where the citrus wants to work with that and that punchy vanilla wants to work with that.

Guest: 00:43:16

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:43:17

I love the process of breaking down flavors.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:43:20

I just find it completely fascinating.

Guest: 00:43:22

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:43:23

So which one's this one?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:43:24

Street corn.

Travis Briggs: 00:43:25

Yeah, street corn.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:43:26

Very excited about that.

Travis Briggs: 00:43:27

So this one was a good lesson in failure and learning from your mistakes.

Travis Briggs: 00:43:33

I tried making it last summer.

Travis Briggs: 00:43:36

Did not work out well.

Travis Briggs: 00:43:38

Basically had to throw the whole thing out.

Travis Briggs: 00:43:40

Made it again this summer.

Travis Briggs: 00:43:42

Tried a different thing for the, um, like, the swirl, which I wanted to be the topping on street corn.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:43:50

Mm hmm.

Travis Briggs: 00:43:52

And I tried using greek yogurt because I was too intimidated by putting mayonnaise in ice cream.

Travis Briggs: 00:43:59

Yeah, I'm down for most things, but sure.

Guest: 00:44:01

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:44:01

Putting mayonnaise in ice cream scared me.

Travis Briggs: 00:44:03

So that also didn't work out well.

Travis Briggs: 00:44:06

So I reached out to Casa de Maize in Rochester, which is a.

Travis Briggs: 00:44:13

I think they literally just started this summer.

Travis Briggs: 00:44:15

They're in a lotte business.

Travis Briggs: 00:44:17

Really fantastic.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:19

Oh, I'm not familiar.

Guest: 00:44:20

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:44:21

Oh, like, don't care how messy my face gets.

Travis Briggs: 00:44:26

I'm all in.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:27

Are they.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:28

Do they have a.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:28

Do they have a storefront?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:29

Where are they?

Travis Briggs: 00:44:29

No, they're just doing pop ups.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:31

Oh, I love that.

Guest: 00:44:32

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:44:32

Just different, you know, I'm super excited.

Travis Briggs: 00:44:35

Recognizing game.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:36

I am looking for that as soon as we are off this recording.

Guest: 00:44:40

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:42

Oh, yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:43

This definitely has that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:45

Like, you're getting that, like, a little bit of funk.

Guest: 00:44:48

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:48

Getting that nip of heat.

Guest: 00:44:50

Yep.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:53

You're getting that corn flavor.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:54

It's.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:55

It's not as punchy of corn.

Guest: 00:44:57

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:44:58

It's definitely more evocative of the elote versus corn specifically.

Guest: 00:45:02

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:45:03

Not necessarily in a negative way, but, you know, it's always.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:45:05

For me, it's always about the analytical tasting.

Guest: 00:45:07

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:45:08

And when I say that stuff, some people take it personally.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:45:10

Like, oh, it's not this.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:45:12

I always just break it down.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:45:13

Like, how.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:45:14

What pops in your.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:45:15

In your mouth?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:45:16

Where does it hit?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:45:17

How does the.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:45:18

How does it break down?

Guest: 00:45:19

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:45:20

Um, so I.

Travis Briggs: 00:45:23

Part of another thing for our business is that at any given time, we like to have half of the menu be vegan, and we alternate which flavors are vegan and not.

Travis Briggs: 00:45:34

So, you know, chocolate this week might be vegan, next week it might be traditional.

Travis Briggs: 00:45:39

So for the street corn, I did a vegan sweet corn.

Travis Briggs: 00:45:43

You know, no elote any in it.

Travis Briggs: 00:45:46

It was just straight sweet corn.

Travis Briggs: 00:45:48

And then for the traditional flavor, I did.

Travis Briggs: 00:45:51

I actually flame roasted the corn, chopped it up, and put it in there.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:45:58

And then.

Travis Briggs: 00:45:59

Yeah, casa de Maise helped us out with the elote mix.

Travis Briggs: 00:46:04

And then this one that you're going.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:05

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:05

And it does, you know, it does coat that has that little bit of that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:10

Like, that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:12

Why am I forgetting, you know, that, you know, queso fresco, kind of that dairy cheese kind of funk that little bit.

Guest: 00:46:23

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:23

Does make a lot of difference with.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:26

Make.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:26

You want to go back for the next bite.

Guest: 00:46:28

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:28

I think the only thing for me is, like, I want the salt levels to be doubled.

Travis Briggs: 00:46:34

Okay.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:34

Like, I would want it to have that little bit of salty tang at the back.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:39

Um, but I'm a.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:41

I'm a voracious salter of sweet things.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:44

Um, like, I would be grinding salt on every bite, almost like every layer of the pint.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:50

I would be like, grind then I would eat it because, like, I think it amplifies the flavors.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:46:57

And especially for that, like, I would want that little bit of.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:01

That little bit of salty thing.

Guest: 00:47:02

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:03

I'm always thinking, like, at the.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:04

At the cart, where you have just a little thing of Tajin.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:09

Of Tajin or a little bit, like, mix that with a little bit of.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:13

That would work.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:14

Or, like, Maldon salt.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:16

Like smoked Maldon salt.

Guest: 00:47:17

Yeah.

Guest: 00:47:17

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:18

Um, a lot cheaper if you buy it in the pails, by the way.

Travis Briggs: 00:47:21

Okay.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:21

Now, if.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:22

If you're using as much meld and salt as I think I am, uh, but buying it in the tubs is way cheaper per volume.

Guest: 00:47:30

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:47:31

Um, and that's the thing.

Travis Briggs: 00:47:32

Like, we do.

Travis Briggs: 00:47:33

We do take a lot of feedback because we are so early on that, you know, it can only.

Travis Briggs: 00:47:41

I never take offense to that stuff because it can only improve your experience, which ultimately is my goal.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:48

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:48

And also, the other thing is, like, I know if everybody designed their flavors to appeal to me specifically, that would be a giant mistake.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:47:59

Like, there's elements of it that would amplify.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:48:02

Like, I might want double, but even if you want to buy 20% or 10% on the salt, it might liven things up a little bit.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:48:10

So there's always a root of something there.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:48:12

But I know for sure that people catering to my level of intensity, of flavor, concentration, and really bringing that, bringing that pop of salt, that pop of savory, that pop of other things, people get turned off by that sometimes.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:48:30

I don't get it, but I also get it, like, yeah, I just want.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:48:35

I want to be.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:48:35

I want to be punched in the face by flavor as much as is possible.

Travis Briggs: 00:48:40

So, I mean, harkening back to the salt and pepper ice cream that you had, you know, this would be considered a gimmick ice cream.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:48:50

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:48:50

But I want our avant garde flavors to be something that you can have an entire cone on.

Travis Briggs: 00:48:57

I love that.

Travis Briggs: 00:48:58

Not just like a little sample, like, oh, yeah, that's funny.

Travis Briggs: 00:49:00

Haha.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:01

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:49:01

But like, oh, no, I want an entire.

Travis Briggs: 00:49:03

I want an entire thing of this.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:05

I love that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:06

I think that's.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:06

That's important.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:07

I think being able to make, and I think, to be fair, calling it a gimmick flavor is not wrong.

Travis Briggs: 00:49:12

Right.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:14

But the gimmick has to work, because otherwise, people are like, oh, they just threw stuff in a thing and we paid for that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:23

It's different if you're just serving it to a friend and you're like, hey, try this stuff.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:28

Hey, see what you think of this.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:30

But when you're selling it to people, they don't want to feel like they're being taken advantage of.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:35

And it's not a great experience because they'll think about it once, but then they're not going to come back the next time.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:40

Always.

Guest: 00:49:40

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:49:41

And so yet another part of our.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:45

Great nose on this.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:49:46

I'm enjoying this already.

Travis Briggs: 00:49:48

So another thing for our business is that we want to kind of bring, like, cocktail culture to ice cream.

Travis Briggs: 00:49:56

So all of our, most of our flavors have a garnish on top.

Travis Briggs: 00:50:00

Um, the sweet corn and street corn come with a mini baby corn that's, like, fire roasted right in front of you.

Travis Briggs: 00:50:07

And for the street corn is dipped in that a lot a sauce.

Travis Briggs: 00:50:10

Um, so this one that you're trying right now is our figgy figgy flavor.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:50:15

Mm hmm.

Travis Briggs: 00:50:16

It was a collab with figgy shop on park Ave.

Travis Briggs: 00:50:20

Which.

Travis Briggs: 00:50:20

They're just a gift shop, but not just a gift shop.

Travis Briggs: 00:50:23

They are an incredible gift shop.

Travis Briggs: 00:50:25

Um, and we, whenever we pop up somewhere, we collab with that business to come up with a flavor specifically for them.

Travis Briggs: 00:50:33

So they did a pause for a cause event.

Travis Briggs: 00:50:35

They had their birthday party this spring, and for this flavor, I'd been wanting to make a balsamic ice cream for a long time.

Travis Briggs: 00:50:45

And I had in my head what it would taste like.

Travis Briggs: 00:50:48

And then I made this, and I tried it, and it was exactly what I had in my head, which is, like, so wonderful when it works out like that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:50:56

I love the fruitiness.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:50:58

This.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:50:59

It almost amplifies the dairy flavors of the dairy in the best possible way, I think.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:51:07

You know, balsamic can play very.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:51:10

You can play cloying when it's too concentrated and they add tons of sugar to it.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:51:16

But you get that hit, that little hit of vinegar on the nose in the best possible way.

Guest: 00:51:22

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:51:22

That kind of plays like a strawberry.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:51:24

It really does.

Guest: 00:51:26

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:51:26

Um, and it does play very fresh fruit because of the acidity.

Guest: 00:51:33

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:51:33

And that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:51:34

That's exactly what I would think about.

Guest: 00:51:36

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:51:37

There.

Travis Briggs: 00:51:37

And then there's also a fig jam swirl in that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:51:40

Okay.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:51:40

I haven't hit that yet.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:51:41

That's why I was wondering.

Travis Briggs: 00:51:42

Yeah, because, like, those are.

Travis Briggs: 00:51:44

Those would be the dark.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:51:44

Got it.

Travis Briggs: 00:51:45

There you go.

Travis Briggs: 00:51:46

So that you get the tanginess up front, and then the sweet just, like, comes through like a machete and just slices through it and finishes off so.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:51:54

Well, I was waiting for the fig in the base, and I wasn't gonna talk around it.

Guest: 00:52:01

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:52:01

You know, sometimes you're gonna talk around it, like, where is the fig.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:52:05

Is it really that?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:52:06

Yeah, because the bass is really a balsamic base.

Travis Briggs: 00:52:09

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:52:09

It's not really a super figgy base.

Travis Briggs: 00:52:11

Yeah, it's a fig balsamic.

Travis Briggs: 00:52:12

I mean, I wasn't about to go out and try to make fig balsamic, but, yeah, you know, just what I can pick up from the store.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:52:20

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:52:20

Cause it is very nice and fruity.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:52:23

Cause that can play very sweet on its own, but in the context of this, it works.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:52:28

But when you get it with that little bit of extra, you know, that punch of sweet from the fig jam, man, that does work really well.

Travis Briggs: 00:52:38

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:52:39

So that was.

Travis Briggs: 00:52:40

That was a.

Travis Briggs: 00:52:41

That was a moment where I was like, I don't want to call it synesthesia, because it's definitely not that, but, like, I could literally just close my eyes and taste what I was imagining, and then when I made it and put all the things together, it just, like, start to finish, played exactly what was in my head, and that was really rewarding.

Travis Briggs: 00:53:02

Wish the street corner had gone the same way the first time around.

Travis Briggs: 00:53:05

But not always meant to be.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:08

No, I think.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:08

I think that's always a bit of a challenge.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:10

Is like, that works to me.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:15

That's the one that grabs me.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:17

Like, I enjoyed the other ones.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:19

I think they're well done.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:20

They're quality products, but that grabbed me because that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:24

It feels so complete.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:27

Right.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:27

I can tell right away that when you're talking about it, you've got a connection to it.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:32

Right.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:32

You feel really strongly about that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:35

And the others are really good, but I can tell right away when you're talking about, yeah, this is something I've been thinking about, and it tastes like that.

Guest: 00:53:44

Yeah, yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:53:46

And so that's, you know, that's the goal for this, is to make ice cream that you can't necessarily find somewhere else.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:53:54

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:53:57

And, you know, technically, I'm sure that some people, when they first read it, see balsamic and think gimmick flavor.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:05

But I'm like, no, no, no, you got it.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:07

You got to try it.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:08

And then they're like, holy cow.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:54:10

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:10

I didn't know I was missing this my whole life.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:54:13

That's awesome.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:14

So, yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:15

And people.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:18

Some people come up to the cart, and our tagline is evocative craft.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:23

Craft ice cream, because we want to evoke memories and feelings and joy and, you know, with the s'mores, the campfire vibes.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:34

You know, you smell the marshmallow, and you, like, you think you're right next to the fire with that one.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:39

I had quite a few people say, oh, man, this is like, I'm back in Italy again.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:42

And so making flavors that actually make you feel something just on their own.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:49

And then, you know, we add the little toasted corn on top or whatever.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:55

That's what it's all about.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:56

That and building community.

Travis Briggs: 00:54:58

So, you know, like Casa de Mae's and Figgy shop and a bunch of other places that we've collabed with at.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:55:06

Pandemonium, of course, which is where I tasted your stuff on a Friday night.

Travis Briggs: 00:55:10

Yeah, I mean, Winterswan, Jen's artisan bread.

Travis Briggs: 00:55:15

I could keep going and going and going, but the whole point of this is to build community and build something that people can be proud of in Rochester and be like, okay, when you visit Rochester, you got to visit.

Travis Briggs: 00:55:32

You got it.

Travis Briggs: 00:55:32

You got to do this.

Travis Briggs: 00:55:33

You got to get a garbage plate and then finish it off with some countertop creamery.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:55:37

So I'm going to throw out a challenge for you.

Guest: 00:55:40

All right.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:55:40

Before we dive into, like, what's next for countertop?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:55:44

So I am going to challenge you to make something that and does one or the other.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:55:52

But I think this will be a fun challenge, something that evokes either the puerto rican or jamaican communities of Rochester.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:56:01

There's so many different directions you can go down, and I can give you a whole bunch of different, like, flavor directions to think about.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:56:08

But there's some really amazing flavors that are in the drinks and in other things I think could make a great ice cream flavor.

Guest: 00:56:18

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:56:20

And with the, you know, all the different, you know, communities of the city of Rochester, I think that would be a fun challenge to really embrace all the different aspects of what Rochester is.

Travis Briggs: 00:56:30

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:56:31

One of my coworkers at UPREP used to work at sidebar.

Guest: 00:56:36

Yeah, yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:56:36

And I really want to do a fried plantain.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:56:42

Oh, that would be.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:56:43

Oh, a sweet plantain ice cream would be awesome.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:56:46

Yeah, that.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:56:47

That's something.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:56:48

That could be great.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:56:49

I was thinking, like, you could also go down the road of, you know, tamarind or passion fruit.

Guest: 00:56:54

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:56:55

Or jamaican, like, Hamica or what's.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:01

You know, sometimes it's like, it'll be hibiscus and ginger.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:05

Yeah, sorrel.

Guest: 00:57:07

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:07

So it'll be hibiscus and ginger.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:09

There's so many great directions.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:11

Go down.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:12

I love the idea of a, you know, sweet roasted or fried plantain ice cream.

Guest: 00:57:17

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:19

Maduros.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:19

It's so good.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:20

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:21

So that would be my.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:23

Just a fun flavor challenge for you to dive into.

Travis Briggs: 00:57:27

If any local business is listening to this and wants to reach out to us.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:31

I got a couple for you, man.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:33

I've worked with a ton of different places around town, so I'm happy to introduce you to a few of them and get you.

Travis Briggs: 00:57:39

I live.

Travis Briggs: 00:57:40

I live right around the corner from everything is good.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:43

Oh, yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:44

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:57:44

And man, that's to be.

Guest: 00:57:47

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:57:47

What used to be Peppa pot.

Travis Briggs: 00:57:49

I'm not sure what it is now.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:50

I have to.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:51

I do feel bad.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:52

I have to reach out to Marlene because she's one of my favorite people in Rochester.

Guest: 00:57:55

Yeah.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:56

Who ran Peppa Pot?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:57

I.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:58

She was.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:57:59

She was so great to work with, with nominate.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:58:02

She's one of the first places we worked with and I.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:58:05

I can't say enough great things about her as a person.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:58:07

And we loved working with her in the food.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:58:10

So shout out to her.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:58:12

Hopefully she's doing well.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:58:14

So want to finish off with what's next?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:58:18

What's next for countertop?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:58:19

Are you just in the maintenance growth?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:58:22

Are you into the next thing?

Chris Lindstrom: 00:58:23

Where are you thinking you're going to be?

Travis Briggs: 00:58:26

So next goal is definitely improving the machinery.

Travis Briggs: 00:58:34

If I get the next size up of machinery that's actually water cooled, I would cut my batching time from 2 hours down to like 15 minutes.

Travis Briggs: 00:58:45

And that would just free up so much more of my time to create flavors, work on the rest of the concept for the business.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:58:56

Also, the speed of freezing changes your ice crystal shape significantly.

Travis Briggs: 00:59:01

Yes.

Travis Briggs: 00:59:01

And I've.

Travis Briggs: 00:59:02

I've.

Travis Briggs: 00:59:03

I have worked with bigger batch machines and my recipe does translate well to those machines.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:59:08

That's awesome.

Travis Briggs: 00:59:08

Which is really nice because, yeah, it would be a bummer to have to go and re rework everything, but.

Guest: 00:59:18

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 00:59:19

Right now I just have the cartae that I built that I tow with my bicycle around Rochester.

Travis Briggs: 00:59:25

Um, which means that I have to be the one doing that because not many people I know can tow a 600 pound cart behind a bicycle without, fair enough.

Travis Briggs: 00:59:34

Without an e assist.

Travis Briggs: 00:59:35

Um, so possibly in like, another cart that does have a motor in it or some sort of food truck.

Travis Briggs: 00:59:45

Um, I don't want to give too much away, but there are some pretty cool machines that we're looking at on Facebook marketplace that could, could definitely be a cool experience for people to see.

Chris Lindstrom: 00:59:59

That's awesome, man.

Travis Briggs: 01:00:00

And then, yeah, we're going to be.

Travis Briggs: 01:00:02

So once we get that next level of machinery that allows to wholesale two businesses.

Travis Briggs: 01:00:09

So, for example, with our jamaican and puerto rican business friends being able to have an ice cream buy countertop creamery in their shop that, you know, they were collaborating on and they're able to sell as part of their menu as well as wholesaling to other businesses and things of that nature.

Travis Briggs: 01:00:34

I think a brick and mortar is a ways off.

Travis Briggs: 01:00:37

I was hopeful that by next summer I could do it, but being realistic, it's probably not going to happen.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:00:44

I think things happen when they.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:00:47

And it's not about.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:00:49

It's not about like, oh, things happen when they need to happen, but it's more like when you're really working on developing what you're doing and you're going in the right direction, you have to be ready for an opportunity when it comes up.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:01:03

And it doesn't mean you have to force.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:01:05

You have to force the brick and mortar right away.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:01:07

I've seen people do it too early and it doesn't work out.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:01:11

It doesn't work out if you're not really ready.

Guest: 01:01:13

Yeah.

Guest: 01:01:14

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 01:01:14

So.

Travis Briggs: 01:01:15

And that's definitely a lesson that I've been seeing around town and taking to heart.

Travis Briggs: 01:01:21

And my girlfriend Lily is really good at grounding me in that, in that regard, because let's do it today.

Travis Briggs: 01:01:27

And she's like, yeah, you're probably not ready, but she's supportive in other regards.

Travis Briggs: 01:01:34

So, yeah, just the machinery.

Travis Briggs: 01:01:37

And, um, we are doing affogato at AM FM because that's the space that we work out of.

Travis Briggs: 01:01:45

So we are allowed to sell ice cream in that.

Travis Briggs: 01:01:47

In that space.

Travis Briggs: 01:01:49

So if you haven't checked out AM FM, Wade makes incredible coffee and you can choose a bunch of different flavors of ice cream and do an affigato with it.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:02:02

So, yeah, I mean, a great spot right at the corner parcel 545, Euclid Avenue Street.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:02:08

Euclid street.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:02:11

And for those of you that have been around downtown for a long time, this was the second Fuego location.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:02:17

So this is the same spot where pop rock was and everything else, but the direction that AM FM's going is really excited.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:02:24

Exciting.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:02:25

I'm excited to see you grow along with that and get to your next steps.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:02:29

So why don't you throw out some plugs again for where people can follow you to see where you're popping up and then they know they can go to AM FM as well.

Guest: 01:02:37

Yeah.

Travis Briggs: 01:02:38

So we'll be popping up this week.

Travis Briggs: 01:02:41

Well, yeah, this week we're going to be popping up at Fatty Beer company on Thursday and Jen's artisan on Friday.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:02:48

Love Fatty beer.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:02:48

They do.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:02:49

They're just great guys to work with.

Travis Briggs: 01:02:50

Chicken sandwiches.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:02:52

They do a really nice job and it's a great place to hang out right in the new neighborhood of play.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:02:56

Right in the heart of Rochester.

Travis Briggs: 01:02:58

Yeah, I wish I could afford to open up a spot in there, but it's super expensive.

Travis Briggs: 01:03:04

Yeah, for sure.

Travis Briggs: 01:03:06

But yeah, you can see, you can find us on our socials.

Travis Briggs: 01:03:10

It's all just countertop creamery.

Travis Briggs: 01:03:12

We post our weekly schedule there.

Travis Briggs: 01:03:14

We also have a website, countertopcreamer.com.

Travis Briggs: 01:03:17

we've got a upcoming events page.

Travis Briggs: 01:03:21

And then if you have a craft show or a private event that you're interested in having us for, and you want your own custom ice cream flavor for that event, you can just contact us countertopcraamer or just dm us on instagram.

Travis Briggs: 01:03:41

Either way.

Travis Briggs: 01:03:43

And yeah, that's all the spots.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:03:47

Awesome, man.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:03:48

Well, I really appreciate you coming over and talking about everything you're doing and for everybody who's listening, if you haven't checked out the other shows on the Lunchadore podcast network, go to lunchadore.org to see all, all of the shows.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:01

We've got more shows coming very soon.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:04

We've got nights and weekends by the sound.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:07

We've got some content coming out from in this moment.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:10

We're working with them on audiobooks.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:11

We're super excited about that.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:13

We've got Murphy's rank.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:14

The world we've got just started is shelling peas from Ryan Jennings and Sweet pea plant based kitchen.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:22

Lots of new stuff coming up.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:23

We're so excited.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:25

If you're interested in being involved, let me know.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:27

You can reach out stromymail.com or Lunchadore podcast.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:32

Thank you so much for listening.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:33

We'll be back next time with more on the Food about Town podcast.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:38

This has been a presentation of the Lunchadore podcast network.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:48

Cut my Graham crackers into pieces.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:50

This is my last s'mores resort.

Chris Lindstrom: 01:04:54

That didn't quite work, but I'm gonna do it anyways.