Greater's Ice Cream (13 page)
Read Greater's Ice Cream Online
Authors: Robin Davis Heigel
Tags: #Graeter’s Ice Cream: An Irresistible History
In June 2006, Christopher Buckley of
forbes.com
, a self-declared ice cream snob, wrote about growing up on Good Humor and Carvel soft serve and how, in adulthood, he branched out to find the best of the sweet treat he could. He thought he had discovered the pinnacle at the University Pastry Shop in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington,
D.C., where he lived (he was also a fan of the much ballyhooed Berthillon and Dallyou in Paris). After tasting Graeter's Ice Cream, however, he realized that the best ice cream was in an unlikely location.
A few years ago, a dear friend from Ohio confidedârather insistedâthat the best ice cream in the world is made in Cincinnati, by a firm called Graeter's. Ice cream snob that I am, I treated this revelation with skepticism and hauteur. Cincinnati? Well, all right, if you say soâ¦
She turned out to be right. Never have I more gladly eaten my words than when I fellâfreefallingâinto that first pint of Graeter's black raspberry chip. Why, I demanded, had no one told me of this before? To have wasted a half-century! I dug deeper, into their peach, strawberry, coffee, caramel, double chocolate chip, mint chocolate chip, eggnog. How ironic, how delicious, how patriotic, to have traveled the world in search of happiness only to find itâin Cincinnati.
Money
magazine did a fun piece in 2006 where it had four pregnant women taste five ice creams that could be mail-ordered from anywhere in the country. Graeter's black raspberry chocolate chip came in second only to Il Aboratorio Del Gelato from New York and beat Columbus's Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams salty caramel flavor. The tasters said it was sweet and complex, nice and smooth, “the way ice cream from childhood tasted.”
In December 2005,
Vanity Fair
magazine recommended Graeter's as one of its “hot gifts,” saying that Graeter's was “one of the best homemade-ice-cream companies in the country.”
The company was written about not once but twice by
Saveur
magazine, first when the magazine wrote:
Ice cream artisans have a long history in this country (New York shopkeeper Philip Lindsay first marketed his flavors in 1777), and today, great ice cream is easy to findâlocallyâ¦Graeter's quest for good fruit symbolizes
[Dick Graeter's]
dedication: His fussy search for prime peaches starts in the Carolinas in midsummer and moves north with the season, paying off with fresh peach ice cream. Earlier in the summer, he scours Oregon and Washington for black raspberries to go in his best selling flavor, black raspberry chip. But his biggest triumph is the chocolate chips.
The magazine again wrote about it in a roundup of ice cream parlors across the country. Graeter's was named along with Amy's Ice Creams in Austin, Texas, Dr. Bob's Handcrafted Ice Creams in Upland, California, and Ted Drewes Frozen Custard in St. Louis.
When Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, was asked by
USA Today
for his favorite ice cream parlors in July 2002, he listed Graeter's as one of the best.
Gourmet
magazine was also a fan of Graeter's, describing it as “the perfect pint.” And finally,
Chicago
magazine said Graeter's was a must for those taking a road trip to the Queen City:
From an endless array of choices, we picked a bowl of mocha chocolate chip with marshmallows and hot chocolate sauce, that was smooth, rich, and insanely creamy. It was about here that my wife, a lifelong Chicagoan asked how much I thought a house in Cincinnati cost.
The Graeter family also says it has received orders from a number of celebrities, including Sarah Jessica Parker, George Clooney (his aunt, Rosemary Clooney, was a long-standing family friend of the Graeters; she also became the celebrity spokesperson for Graeter's when the Aronoff Center store opened downtown in 1996), Nick Lachey, Kevin Costner, Ashley Judd and Justin Timberlake.
In addition, Graeter's is the official ice cream of the Cincinnati Bengals.
1868â1872
Louis Charles Graeter leaves home in Indiana for the big city and begins selling ice cream at a street market, eventually establishing a storefront on Sycamore Street.
Louis and his brother Fred move to various storefronts, adding candy to the business and eventually following the incline up to Walnut Hills. In August 1883, Louis leaves to open an ice cream company in California.
Louis returns to Cincinnati, marries Regina Berger and resumes operating Graeter's Ice Cream in Walnut Hills (which his brother continued during his absence). The couple settles at 967 East McMillan Street.
Louis dies in a tragic accident. Regina continues the business with her two young sons.
Regina begins opening satellite stores, beginning with Walnut Street downtown and the Higginson's Tea Room in Hyde Park. Six new stores are opened by 1929.
Underperforming stores are closed or relocated, and Graeter's enjoys a period of high profitability as war-weary customers enjoy sweet treats at Graeter's during a time of rationing.
Ice cream industry begins to change with the introduction of soft serve and home freezers that make packaged ice cream feasible at home all year round.
Regina Graeter, “the Boss,” dies; business is carried on by her sons, Wilmer and Paul. The industry changes from mom and pop shops to an era of big commercial dairies and mass production.
Bakery product line is introduced in response to competitive challenges of new soft serve and the trend to eat ice cream at home.
Wilmer, with sons Louis, Dick and Jon, buys out Uncle Paul and rebuilds a business that had deteriorated due to lack of investment over the previous decade.
Graeter's opens prototype single-store ice cream factory on Colerain Avenue based on new Carpigiani batch freezer.
Graeter's first franchise operation opens in northern Kentucky. Single-store factory concept is abandoned, but the Carpigiani machines prove successful.
Graeter's begins selling ice cream through Kroger.
Fourth-generation Chip, Bob and Richard join the business.
Plant expansion is completed, nearly doubling the space to twenty-five thousand square feet at a cost of almost $2 million.
Transition of ownership to the fourth generation is completed. Major brand projects completed, resulting in a professional brand mark, packaging and environmental designs.
Work begins to add three new retail stores, taking Graeter's outside Hamilton County and beyond the I-275 loop for the first time.
Plant capacity increased over 40 percent from 2004, allowing for Ohio wholesale expansion. New strategic alliances formed with Trauth and Smith to expand distribution.
Graeter's introduced to Denver in the first test market without retail, sparking interest from new partners and other markets. Plans begin for new manufacturing plant.
Graeter's breaks ground for its new plant in Bond Hill, to be completed 2010.
Graeter's moves production to new Bond Hill plant and buys out largest franchisee, bringing the total number of company-owned retail stores to twenty-nine.
C
INCINNATI
Corporate Office/Mount Auburn
2145 Reading Road
Cincinnati, OH 43202
513-721-3323
Cherry Grove
8533 Beechmont Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45255
513-474-5636
Clifton
332 Ludlow Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45220
513-281-4749
Deerfield
5076 Natorp Boulevard
Mason, OH 45040
513-339-0140
Finneytown
899 West Galbraith
Cincinnati, OH 45232
513-522-8157
Foutain Square
511 Walnut Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202
513-381-4191
Hyde Park Square
2704 Erie Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45208
513-321-6221
Kenwood
7369 Kenwood Road
Cincinnati, OH 45236
513-793-5665
Mariemont Square
6918 Wooster Pike
Cincinnati, OH 45227
513-272-0859
Northgate
9356 Colerain Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45251
513-385-5045
Springdale
11511 Princeton Road
Cincinnati, OH 45246
513-771-7157
Western Hills
2376 Ferguson Road
Cincinnati, OH
45238 513-755-2236
Western Hills
3301 Westbourne Drive
Cincinnati, OH 45248
513-922-8700
OLUMBUS
Corporate Office/Bethel Road
2555 Bethel Road
Columbus, OH 43220
614-442-7622
Bexley
2282 East Main Street
Bexley, OH 43209
614-236-2263
Dublin
6255 Frantz Road
Dublin, OH 43017
614-799-2663
Easton
147 Easton Town Center
Columbus, OH 43219
614-476-2094
Gahanna
425 Beecher Road
Gahanna, OH 43230
614-855-5508
Grove City
4009 Broadway
Grove City, OH 43123
614-277-9011
Pickerington
1500 Cross Creeks Boulevard
Pickerington, OH 43147
614-755-0865
Powell
3762 West Powell Road
Powell, OH 43065
614-336-3661
Upper Arlington
1534 West Lane Avenue
Columbus, OH 43221
614-488-3222
Westerville
1 North State Street
Westerville, OH 43081
614-895-0553
Worthington
654 High Street
Worthington, OH 43085
614-848-5151
AYTON
Beavercreek
2330-A North Fairfield Road
Beavercreek, OH 45431
937-427-4700
Centerville
2 North Main Street
Centerville, OH 45459
937-312-9001
Oakwood
2412 Far Hills Avenue
Dayton, OH 45419
937-534-0602
Springboro
752 Gardner Road
Springboro, OH 45066
937-748-0300
EXINGTON
Brighton Place Shoppes
3090 Helmsdale Place
Lexington, KY 40509
859-543-0446
Lexington
325 Romany Road
Lexington, KY 40502
859-543-0446
Palomar
3735 Harrodsburg Road
Lexington, KY 40513
859-296-9636
Tates Creek
4101 Tates Creek Road
Lexington, KY 40517
859-245-4037
OUISVILLE
Fern Creek
6509 Bardstown Road
Louisville, KY 40291
502-231-2083
Highlands Douglass Loop
2204 Bardstown Road
Louisville, KY 40205
502-451-0044
The Horseshoe Casino Hotel Southern Indiana
11999 Casino Center Drive
Elizabeth, IN 47117
812-969-9100
Landis Lakes
13817 English Villa Drive
Louisville, KY 40245
502-254-1760
New Albany
4310 Charlestown Road
New Albany, IN 47150
812-949-6263
Springhurst
9430 Brownsboro Road
Louisville, KY 40241
502-327-0651
ORTHERN
K
ENTUCKY
Florence
8860 U.S. Highway 42
Florence, KY 41042
859-384-9130
Fort Mitchell
301 Buttermilk Pike
Fort Mitchell, KY 41017
859-781-7770
Newport
1409 North Grand Avenue
Newport, KY 41071
859-781-7770
Newport on the Levee
342 Monmouth Street
Newport, KY 41071
859-261-3160
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Cincinnati Enquirer
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Business Courier
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Cincinnati Enquirer
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Money
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Cleveland Plain Dealer
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Cincinnati
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Cincinnati Enquirer
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Cincinnati Enquirer
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Cincinnati Enquirer
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