Shannon,
Ohio, eh? We are part of the Greater Cincinnati metro. We live and work in Covington, KY, which is just across the Ohio River from Downtown Cincinnati.
Our shop specializes in soft serve in over 70 flavors (using very highly concentrated flavor squirts), and through the magic of blending we can make over 100,000 flavor blends! We also have over 50 toppings and various options that, ultimately, allow us to more a few BILLION unique frozen treats. And that's before using those same flavors for craft sodas, coffee drinks, teas, lemonades, ciders and more. It's definitely unique and something we capitalize on.
We are in our 13th year and have outgrown the space we started the business in. We just signed a lease on a new space that is only a block away, which is perfect. It's an old historic building that is very common in our mixed-use historic neighborhood. Here's a link to our blog announcement about the new venue. We start renovations next week.
Otherwise to your comments about "the internet." Over the past few months, we have made the momentous decision to minimize our presence on social media. It started a few months ago when we announced a new line of vegan soft serve -- in addition to our regular offering. You would have thought that I had announced that we were making blood sacrifices on the front lawn, and including a side show of flag burning! I was accused of "giving in to the terrorist vegans," and "bringing shame upon the American institution of ice cream." The trolls hit us pretty hard. And, then, recently we were trolled again for having great ice cream, but for being obviously owned by “libtards.” That pretty much broke me.
I deleted our Instagram page. I deactivated our Facebook page and spent a month deleting all posts from it. Then I locked it down -- no outside posts allowed, no comments on any posts allowed, no reactions to my posts made public. Now I use it as a billboard for new blog entries and then link to those. I can control my blog. I use Disqus to vet the comments, filter them and make a list of suspect comments for me to review. It's all under my control and I have a very handy ban button that, if I ever need to use it, causes Disqus to review that person's entire history with them and not just with me.
I'm much happier now. My business is back in my hands and not at the mercy of the very poor job that FB, IG and the other do with vetting trolls. Best of all, I have one channel for communications and all of the other channels are just gateways to send people to that one channel. That's SO much less work.
Anyway, that's more than you asked for. Tell me about your place? I'm a baked good addict, who is so happy he does not have gluten sensitivities.
Chip A.
Square Expert & Innovator and member of the Square Champions group. (But NOT a Square employee, just a seller like you)
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