Six Months of Ice Cream

New projects have a way of lighting up the path ahead, giving both direction and energy to the everyday work of running a business. What started as just a seed of an idea grew into something that shaped my entire summer and opened up a new vision for what’s next. 

Fabled Ice Cream began as a personal creative outlet, a way to cope with the tough, oftentimes dark news cycle. The world is a difficult place. Not so difficult? Ice cream. Making ice cream and exploring starting a new business gave me pleasure, hope, and joy. I want to share those positive feelings and experiences with others in my community. 

It’s hard to be bummed out about life when you have books and ice cream!

New projects have a way of lighting up the path ahead, giving both direction and energy to the everyday work of running a business.

It was April 2025 when I got the crazy idea to launch an ice cream business. I jumped right in and went to scope out spaces where my shop could be located. The dream was always to open a brick-and-mortar scoop shop in my neighborhood, Fort Hunt…Specifically in the Hollin Hall Shopping Center. I went to see a few available spaces and to start expressing my interest to the landlord. It’s a long, slow process breaking into that iconic neighborhood retail center. I am learning to be patient, flexible, and to hold out for the perfect spot there. 

Dreaming big with my little sidekick.

In May I ran a seed funding investment round on HoneyComb Credit. I raised $30,000 in 48 hours on the community lending platform to kickstart the business, which was taking shape as a pop up ice cream cart inside the bookstore for this first year. 

Next, I spent hours in the kitchen, my favorite part. I developed and tested ice cream flavors using my trusty home ice cream machine and hosted my neighbors for some taste testing. At night after the kids were in bed I worked on logistics and planning. 

I think this was a roasted lemon base I was experimenting with, so good.

Later that month I bought my ice cream cart so I could pop up at the bookstore. I ordered this professional cart custom made from C Nelson Manufacturing, scheduled to arrive in June. 

The cart before her pretty makeover with vinyl decals.

Next, I hit the road. I traveled to Nampa, Idaho to attend Ice Cream School, an intensive on ice cream business and production at Stellas Ice Cream. I learned about ice cream making, start up costs, employee management and equipment, and more. All the little things I was so excited to nerd out about. 

At Stellas I got to see a thriving ice cream company and learn from the founders.

By June, the cart was ready for inspection and permitting from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. I got set up at Union Kitchen as a commissary kitchen to base my cart out of, and was officially approved to sell hand dipped ice cream from my cart. 

Just a girl and hear hard won health permit.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned along the path to starting a food business, it’s that patience is a virtue.

That month we hosted our first event. It was our annual Hot Book Summer event, featuring a free scoop of ice cream with a book purchase. The Alexandria City Health Department was a dream to work with, helping me get temporary permitting while I waited for the state approvals to roll in. If there’s one thing I’ve learned along the path to starting a food business, it’s that patience is a virtue.

Bless this bookselling team for putting up with my ice cream side quest.

The clear favorite on that first hot summer day was strawberry, one of three flavors we scooped, which, with a literary nod, I called “The Classics”. We sourced the ice cream from the wonderful folks at South Mountain Creamery, our partner for production while we get our own machine churning later this year. It was a pleasure seeing people enjoy their cones, finally seeing the dream come to life was wild! The cart looked spiffy too, with its logo and vinyl wrap design from Claire Moskal and installation from Affordable Signs in Alexandria.

Special thanks to Lauren Vanni for taking these photos! 

In June I also got the Fabled Ice Cream website launched, thanks again to Claire at Studio Studio.

It’s so CUTE - fabledicecream.com

June was a big month for learning, too - I got to travel down to Spotty Dog Ice Cream in Richmond, VA, a shop that has been a huge inspiration to my vision for Fabled. At Spotty Dog I got to work in the kitchen for the day and observe as they made everything from scratch: juice from their own oranges for their Orange Dream flavor, house baked salty chocolate chip cookies to mix in, and roasted marshmallows for their S’mores flavor. They even create their own ice cream base using fresh milk and cream. I got to see firsthand how their busy kitchen works on all these elements. Hannah, the owner, shared advice and direction on everything from recipe development to how to operate the batch freezer. I also got some advice on kitchen layout, and picked up tons of inspiration along the way. It was certainly worth the trip - and the dish washing! - to be afforded a behind-the-scenes peek at how a goal-worthy successful scoop shop operates.

While in Richmond at Spotty Dog I also picked up this beauty - a CB-350 batch freezer for making ice cream, woohoo!

July was a quieter month for Fabled Ice Cream. I had the kids bouncing in and out of camp, family travel, and we adopted a new dog. And all the while we were still waiting for permitting to come through, so we could really kick things off and start scooping on a regular basis. But we managed to squeeze in a few events - one for winners of our Where’s Waldo search, and another for folks who participated in our Summer Reading Guide Challenge. It was delightful to see our community response to the cart. I mean, who doesn’t love books and ice cream?

Special thanks to Cate for covering for me while we had the Waldo pop-up when I was out of town!

By August I was gnashing my teeth about the permits and approvals - summer was fast departing, and along with it ice cream season! I held a private event for our investors in the HoneyComb Credit campaign, scooping The Classics along with a new flavor, Giant Peach. It was a much needed morale booster, that evening. After all the delays getting the cart set up, it was revitalizing to meet the people who backed this dream, to hear their support in person, shared over an ice cream cone and hugs and high fives. I might have cried happy tears? Ok, I definitely did…

In person support from investors meant the world to me.

Now it’s September and we’re still waiting on our business license. We’ve been inspected, and approved, by the state for health code purposes, but for some reason we can’t get past the license part of the process, even though we’re operating the cart on our own private property (as opposed to outside on city property.) This final hoop feels like the hardest - maybe it’s because the weather has cooled, and it’s clear we’re nearing the end of ice cream season. I really wanted to have one last big pop-up event.

If all goes well, we’re aiming to be good to go for Spooky Town Books on October 25th, where we’ll debut a pumpkin flavor we’re planning to serve with a molasses ginger cookie from Nicole’s Kitchen, our friends from Union Kitchen. 

Until then, I hope you’ll follow along with my ice cream journey on Instagram @fabledicecream. For now I’m at Union Kitchen next week churning up some test flavors with my new production manager, Jordan. I’m so excited to hopefully roll out my Charlotte’s Web-inspired flavor. It sounds wacky, but it’s an all natural cotton candy flavor with white chocolate “webbing” throughout. Think nostalgic fair ground flavors and stracciatella-style white chocolate chunks. It’s blue! It makes me just so happy. Just like this whole project does, just like Old Town Books does, just like your support does, too. Thanks for being here.

- Ally