ST. LOUIS — Serendipity Homemade Ice Cream owner Beckie Jacobs wants the majority of her revenue to come from wholesale business. The new location in The Grove neighborhood, where she's opening next month, has the room to make that a reality, in addition to serving a new menu to her retail customers.
Serendipity was a staple for sweet treats at 8130 Big Bend Blvd. in Webster Groves for 18 years. Jacobs opened that first location in 2003, and after a disagreement with her landlord, she said she was forced to close the flagship store in December last year.
Jacobs had already announced in September that she planned to open a second, larger location at the $9.8 million Gateway Lofts mixed-use development in The Grove.
She said when she was approached by Amrit and Amy Gill of Restoration St. Louis, the owners and developers of the Gateway Lofts, she jumped at the opportunity and signed a lease on the ground floor of the apartment building at 4400 Manchester Ave. in Suite A.
"It was the best change I never asked for," according to Jacobs. Now she has the opportunity and space to focus on developing and expanding the manufacturing side of her business, which she's wanted to do since the start of the pandemic. The Grove location totals 2,000 square feet, of which 45% will be used for manufacturing ice cream, she said.
Jacobs said she usually makes her own ice cream. But in September 2018, she decided to begin purchasing ice cream from a distributor as well, some of which used Serendipity's recipe. That decision erased the progress Jacobs had made in growing her wholesale business, thus far. She said that before, when she made her own ice cream, just over half her yearly revenue came from the wholesale portion of Serendipity.
Read the full story on the St. Louis Business Journal website.
