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I was looking at buying an ice cream store in the northeast and the current owner just shuts down December - January. In prior years he has also just run it at breakeven/small loss during those months as a way to keep key employees on the payroll. This probably isn’t helpful just an FYI.
Been thinking about the same thing and this anecdote is helpful.
Might look into other stuff.
1) Diversify - a lot of the ice cream shops in ski towns I’ve visited have hot chocolate, heated up cookie or waffle offerings -> see what would be the easiest fit for your business
2) Milk Christmas - Christmas flavors/specials/marketing will buy you at least one more month. Valentines day could be good too
3) Cut variable costs in those months - at the end of the day, you can’t avoid this
Well, there's Phoenix.
It's not necessarily about the volume of cones sold as much as it is the margin you get selling those cones. Premium ice cream chains stay open during the winter since the margins on selling a $5 cone can still cover your costs despite lower sales volume. Not sure this directly answers your question but I have a good friend in the ice cream business.
This is helpful.
Would you mind sharing more about your friend's business and experience? Did he greenfield or brownfield a business? i.e., start from scratch or franchise say Ben & Jerry or whatever? What's his margin like? Was he on-site at all times or did he partner with someone else who had more time to be operational on-site?
They own a few franchisees of a big chain known for premium ice cream. Not sure what the margins are like but they are pretty involved with the day to day operations at their stores. From what they’ve told me it’s tough to find reliable people to work those sort of jobs even in a managerial position, especially so nowadays.
Fat people always want ice cream
I know this is a brain teaser question, but ice cream sales are actually higher in the winter. Not sure the split between B&M ice cream stores vs. someone buying ice cream in a grocery store but an FYI nonetheless.
Also sell ice cream cakes. Birthdays and special events have less seasonality.
Diversify via frozen yogurt:)
Start a recurring subscription/pass/membership program - for a monthly fee, get X ice cream cones each month. This has solved seasonality in a ton of industries. Car washes used to make money when it didn't rain. Now you can buy a monthly membership with unlimited washes and the car wash has guaranteed revenue. Ski mountains used to make money when it was a good snow year. Now they've switched to a pass system and they're insulated from variations in the weather year over year.
Plus businesses with significant recurring revenue trade at higher multiples. This isn't a serious suggestion, but the classic play would be to roll up a bunch of sub-scale ice cream store franchises at low multiples, convert them to your recurring business model, and exit at a higher multiple due to the recurring revenue and the fact that it's a scaled platform.
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