Our time was running out before Oct 1st, when I would loose my license. We drove around every nite trying to find a new location. Finally we found the building we are in now. It was an old Hardware store in a small town about 11 miles from Mattoon.
We rented the space, and found a small apartment about 8 blocks from our building. Again we had to move and spend about $8,000 more. We opened October !st.
Moving was a shock to our business, our business had grown 65% in our location on the busy highway. Now we were in a very small town, 11 miles from my customers. We took a big hit, things got very scary, by December we were about close the doors. I asked my husband if we could hang on until the bridal shows in January and give me a chance.
I decided to add hand dipped ice cream to draw in customers, I found a used freezer on ebay that we got for $1, seriously. No one bid on it. It works perfectly, hold 16 flavors. I found ice cream from a company in Wisconsin called The Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream, It is the best ice cream I have ever tasted. Our customers love it too!
The ice cream has worked, it has drawn customers in, the bridal shows were successful, and we doing great with our wedding bookings.
One big plus was trying to draw customers from a town 11 miles south of us. Its a town of money and alot people. We have just broken thru that, and are getting alot of customers!!!!
On the down side we own the building in Mattoon, we have it for sale but this is not the time to sell. We have been able to rent the apartment upstairs but the downstairs remains empty. This had been a very big burden on us finacially but we are finally seeing daylight.
Our new shop
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