In 1996, Kim Malek, CEO and co-founder along with her cousin Tyler Malek of craft ice cream firm Salt & Straw, dreamed of opening an ice cream store in Portland, Oregon. “After I moved right here, I used to be struck by the expertise of actually assembly folks on the road who turned a few of my closest pals,” Kim Malek tells Entrepreneur.
Portland is a “community-driven beacon,” Kim Malek says, so town was a pure spot to determine a 3rd place that may convey folks collectively. She labored at Starbucks in its early days, and the espresso chain additionally leaned into the concept of an area the place prospects might collect exterior of the house or work.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Salt & Straw. Tyler Malek, left; Kim Malek, proper.
Salt & Straw (named for a way ice cream was made again within the day: frozen with rock salt and stored chilly with straw) was based in 2011. Over the previous decade-plus, it is come a great distance — from a single pushcart to a multi-city following because of its ingenious flavors and neighborhood focus.
The corporate has expanded to areas in Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada and Washington, with its first two New York Metropolis retailers opening later this month. Moreover, Salt & Straw has seen a 27% four-year compound annual progress charge (CAGR) since 2020, per the corporate.
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Tyler Malek serves as Salt & Straw’s head of innovation and helps form the corporate’s month-to-month rotating menu collection — September’s apple collection boasts creations like “Apple Cider Donuts” and “Inexperienced Apple Wasabi Sorbet” — alongside everlasting classics reminiscent of “Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons” and “Salted, Malted, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.”
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Salt & Straw
Through the years, Salt & Straw’s dedication to neighborhood has held agency, serving as a through-line in all the pieces the corporate does, Kim Malek says. That spirit extends to the native companies Salt & Straw companions with for taste collaborations, its storefronts, the encompassing communities and its personal group dynamics.
“You get to seek out out about one thing you may not have recognized about by our ice cream.”
Salt & Straw has at all times aimed to craft a menu that displays the neighborhood, that includes varied farmers, artisans and makers in its flavors.
In Portland, among the firm’s many native companions embrace chocolate manufacturing facility and cafe Cloudforest, which has collaborated on flavors like “Cloudforest Chocolate Ishpingo & Mango” and “Cloudforest’s Cocoa Hazelnut Magic Shell”; Sokol Blosser Vineyard, which helped create the hit “Pink Rosé and Watermelon Sorbet”; Durant Olive Mill, which is behind “Arbequina Olive Oil”; craft canned cocktail firm Straightaway Cocktails, which launched its “Lemon Mari Gold Amaro Sherbet” in Might; and the non-profit meals upcycler City Gleaners, which helped convey to life “Day-Outdated Bread Pudding and Chocolate Ganache.”
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Salt & Straw additionally boasts an progressive partnership with Portland-based, literary-inspired perfumery Imaginary Authors. They collaborated on the wearable scent “A Whiff of Waffle Cone,” which incorporates notes of vanilla, Saigon cinnamon and heavy cream, amongst others, and on three edible fragrances — “A Cloud of Cocoa,” “Swoon of Citrus” and “A Plume of Blooms.” They add one other layer to ice cream, which is often too chilly to be aromatic.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Salt & Straw
When Salt & Straw opened its first retailer exterior of Portland in Los Angeles, Malek says the corporate thought of exporting components from its residence base, however it then opted to do issues “the onerous approach” and work with native companies to create flavors that have been reflective of the neighborhood.
“We search for a mixture of of us that can present an expertise for our friends that is these residence run hits that you simply’re enthusiastic about,” Malek says, “and then you definitely get to seek out out about one thing you may not have recognized about by our ice cream.”
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“We create an area the place individuals are enthusiastic about these fascinating ice cream flavors.”
In its shops, Salt & Straw prioritizes a “one-meets-one visitor expertise,” the place prospects can depend on the employees’s full consideration, Malek explains. To that finish, Salt & Straw may be very intentional with its worker deployment mannequin, making certain group members can spend ample time reviewing the menu with prospects and answering any questions.
“It leads to some magical issues taking place in our shops,” Malek says.
Prospects will typically chat with one another as nicely. “We create an area the place individuals are enthusiastic about these fascinating ice cream flavors,” she explains. “They wish to discuss, and that results in extra speaking; they wish to join with one another. Like, ‘Did you attempt the honey balsamic strawberry taste? You are going to find it irresistible.'”
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Salt & Straw
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In accordance with Malek, Salt & Straw retailers convey collectively folks from completely different generations and walks of life and even assist facilitate some maybe sudden connections — marriage proposals and job affords have been recognized to occur in line.
On the very least, “it is commonplace that somebody buys a scoop on the finish of the expertise for the particular person they met behind them in line,” Malek says.
Salt & Straw can also be devoted to giving again to the communities that encompass its retailers. Staff stroll the blocks round retailers a number of occasions a day to gather trash, Malek says, and basic managers are paid to attend neighborhood affiliation conferences, very similar to an area store proprietor would, to get entangled on the grassroots stage.
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The corporate additionally collaborates with native elementary faculties yearly for a pupil inventor collection, which supplies college students an opportunity to invent their very own ice cream flavors. The successful flavors find yourself in Salt & Straw shops, and the corporate donates 15% of these flavors’ proceeds to the faculties that invented them. The continued nature of such packages “rounds out this neighborhood factor,” Malek says.
“We put a variety of effort into staying related as a neighborhood with one another.”
Malek says Salt & Straw’s dedication to neighborhood begins inside the firm itself. Meaning establishing intentional communication factors, just like the month-to-month city halls the place your complete firm can name in to listen to updates and ask questions. Salt & Straw additionally has a digital platform the place folks throughout the corporate can join and get to know one another — exchanging data or perhaps a podcast suggestion.
Salt & Straw additionally encourages and supplies a price range for shops to attach with one another, typically internet hosting contests so staff on the successful retailer can have the night time off. And, each October, the entire basic managers collect in Portland.
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“We get collectively annually and have a studying occasion,” Malek says. “We’re all scattered all through completely different areas and locations, however we put a variety of effort into staying related as a neighborhood.”
Nowadays, she’s wanting ahead to reinventing the chocolate taco by Salt & Straw’s partnership with Taco Bell, saying it might give the corporate “a runway to do some actually thrilling progressive issues sooner or later that the world has by no means seen in the case of ice cream,” and, in fact, to the approaching retailer openings in New York Metropolis.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Salt & Straw
“We put a variety of effort into staying related as a neighborhood with one another.”
Malek says New York Metropolis has lengthy been probably the most requested location, however Salt & Straw wished to take its time discovering the proper spot.
“We did not wish to enter New York Metropolis in a flashy vacationer location,” she explains. “We wished to go to neighborhood spots the place we might humbly get to know of us who reside there and be a part of that area people. In order that’s how we considered it.”
Salt & Straw will open at 540 Hudson Avenue within the West Village and 360 Amsterdam Avenue on the Higher West Facet. Within the days forward, the corporate will host a collection of pop-ups with native icons, serving up ice cream and cookies at Levain Bakery on September 6, bagel ice cream sandwiches at PopUp Bagels on September 7 and babka sundaes at Breads Bakery on September 8.
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Malek is worked up to introduce Salt & Straw to New York’s communities — and to maintain innovating alongside the best way.
“My biggest hope is that Salt & Straw can be remembered as a revolutionary participant in what it means to work in our business and be in that neighborhood place, not just for our friends but additionally for our group members — [that’s] my dream long run,” she says.
