Making Seattle Better One Scoop At A Time. Molly Moon’s Ice Cream. Conversation with Molly Moon Neitzel

Molly Moon Neitzel is the woman behind the iconic Seattle ice cream shop, Molly Moon’s. 

Molly gives a look beyond the counter and into the reality and history of Molly Moon’s. From the ingredients behind our favorite flavors to the process of creating and making your favorite scoop of ice cream.

You’ll understand just how much Molly knows ice cream after listening to her fond memories of getting ice cream with her grandfather, to the days scooping ice cream in high school and college. Her passion and experience with ice cream is unlike any other. 

The podcast is also a sneak peak into the world of an employee at Molly Moon’s: benefits, positions, values and skill sets.

Get to know the stories behind the shops, iconic flavors, and values of Molly Moon’s by listening to this podcast. 

Molly Moon Neitzel Episode Transcript

Scott Cowan [00:00:29]:

Welcome to the Exploring Washington State podcast. Here’s your host, Scott Cowan. So my guest today is Molly Moon Neitzel. Molly, thank you for being here. I am really grateful for you making this happen. So welcome to the show.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:00:43]:

Thank you for having me.

Scott Cowan [00:00:46]:

For the one person who’s listening to this that doesn’t know your story, can you can you please give us the story of Molly Moon’s ice cream and how you got started?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:00:57]:

Okay. Well, yeah. Thanks. So I so funny. I feel like my whole life led me to Molly Moon’s, but I didn’t know it. So I’ll do like the really fast life story. I grew up in Boise, Idaho. I worked at an ice cream shop my senior year of high school.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:01:15]:

I went to college at the University of Montana. I thought I was gonna be a journalist. I wanted to be on NPR. And I got a journalism degree, but I never had very much fun working at the NPR local station. I had way more fun working at a preschool and scooping ice cream at the Big Dipper in Missoula, Montana. And when I was in school, my mom would say, Molly, you have got to get a real college job and, like, prepare yourself for life. You can’t just babysit and scoop ice cream your whole life. So I tried my best.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:01:49]:

I moved to Seattle, after college, because my first husband wanted to play music in the city where Nirvana played music. And I, got a job as a fundraiser at UW. But soon, I became enthralled with the Howard Dean campaign and started throwing shows at Chop Suey and for Howard Dean. And that turned into a job as the executive director of a nonprofit that I helped found called Music for America. We partnered with bands and venues all over the country to register young voters to vote and then do, get out the vote work in 02/1978. But in 02/2007, I decided that I didn’t wanna run a nonprofit anymore. I was really tired of asking rich people for money, and I wanted to start a small business and see if I could make a small business profitable while embodying all of my very progressive values. So I was kinda whining to my mom on the phone one night about what I was gonna do after music for America and trying to get the guts to quit.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:03:07]:

And she said, Molly, why don’t you just open an ice cream shop? You know how to do it. You did all the jobs at the Big Dipper, and you know how to run a small business because my grandparents were small business owners. So that was a great idea. Moms are always the smartest kids. And I started working on a business plan, and I I was throwing costs into the business model, that were things I believe either the government or employers should provide, like living wages and free health insurance. And I worked really hard to make the business model extremely sound and the plan as realistic as possible. I worked on it for about seven months. And I kinda said to myself the whole time, I’m either going to write a business plan that has all my values in it, but doesn’t make any money, and the number at the bottom is red, and then I gotta go get a job or I’ll write I’ll work on this plan and I’ll put up all my values into it and the costs associated and the number at the bottom will be black and then I’ll try it.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:04:15]:

So the number at the bottom was black, and I asked some, mostly colleagues, for investment capital. Because at the time I lived in an $800 a month apartment and had student loans and a puppy. And, like, that was the extent of my, you know, responsibilities and I had no money. So I valued my intellectual property, my ideas, and my sweat equity at 50% of the value of the company. And I valued the cash I needed to open my first ice cream shop as 50% of the value of the company. And, I asked seven people for money and they all said yes, and I had the funds I needed. And I started construction on my birthday in 02/2008, which was in January. And I opened Mollyman’s homemade ice cream in Wallingford on 05/10/2008.

Scott Cowan [00:05:16]:

Wow.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:05:18]:

So right away, the shop was a crazy success. Like, I am pretty good at I think I have a pretty good marketing brain. And I I met this awesome publicist right away who was a girl about my age who really believed in this idea of a multi generational community gathering place, ice cream shop that was kind of progressive values led from the start, which wasn’t nearly as common in 02/2008 as it is now. And so we did a really good job marketing for, like, opening day. And I was on some blogs before we opened, and then my grandma, who was the chief of staff for a congressman in Idaho, had like taught me this trick or maybe I had just learned it through osmosis growing up that, well, back in this, back in the day when I grew up in the eighties and nineties, she had a Rolodex And every single person she met, she had a Rolodex card for, like in her whole life. And this Rolodex was massive. It was like this it was as big around as like, I don’t know, a football or something, and it was just crushed with cards. Right? And I think she would even always have, like, cards in her purse.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:06:37]:

So if she met someone, she would either, like, take their their business card and stick it to a Rolodex card or she’d write somebody’s info down on a Rolodex card. And I remember, like, when my little sister was born, she grabbed this gigantic Rolodex, and we went to the hospital and she was, like, calling people, you know, from the giant Rolodex. So I just told you I from the minute I got a cell phone, my first cell phone, my senior year of college, I was like, well, okay. That seems to work for grandma Angie. So I just put everyone I ever met in my phone, both their their number and their email. So when I was about to open Molly Moon’s, I built an email list to tell people, like, please come support me if I’ve ever met you. If you’ve ever liked me, please come support this cool idea and my ice cream shop. It’s opening on Saturday.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:07:29]:

And I had an email list of 1,500 people that I had met since I’ve gotten a cell phone. And I just sent all of them email. And so I had, like, a line around two corners of the block on OTC.

Scott Cowan [00:07:48]:

I love that.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:07:48]:

And that kinda, like, kicked off the buzz, and we had an amazing summer. I started I hired seven employees at the start, but I quickly needed to double that just to get through, like, our first month in business. And by the end of our first summer, I was confident in my business plan. We were making about three times as much money as I had projected, and I was looking for a second location. So now we’re 13 years old, and we have nine ice cream shops.

Scott Cowan [00:08:18]:

So when you started, when you opened the first shop, how many flavors of ice cream did you launch with?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:08:23]:

14.

Scott Cowan [00:08:25]:

Okay. So one question I have, so as I was reading about you in the past, so you referenced or I don’t wanna say you referenced. I saw reference that your grandparents took you for ice cream a lot.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:08:37]:

Yeah. My grandpa John. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:08:38]:

You kinda grew up with this was the treat for you.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:08:41]:

Yeah. Totally. Like, my grandpa took me to the ice cream counter at the Albertsons grocery store that my grandparents went to every day before lunch. It was so awesome. This just happened in the summers because my grandparents would watch me. But, like, they went to the grocery store every single day. My grandpa beelined for the ice cream counter, and he got a scoop of strawberry ice cream on a cake cone, and I got a scoop of chocolate German chocolate cake on a sugar cone, like, every day. It was so great.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:09:15]:

And then my dad also really loves ice cream. And so a lot of times, he and I would have, like, a bowl of ice cream after dinner too. So, yes, I love ice cream.

Scott Cowan [00:09:25]:

So you started with 14 flavors. So I get a kick out of your your mom thought you should have a college job, but then a few years later, she turns around and tells you to open up the thing that you were doing when you’re in college. Yeah. But when you were working at the Little Dipper, were you making were they making ice cream there?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:09:44]:

Yeah. So Okay. Yeah. My boss Did

Scott Cowan [00:09:46]:

you learn to make ice cream?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:09:47]:

Yeah. My boss, Charlie, had an Emery Thompson, this, like, old school American made, ice cream machine, and he taught me how to make ice cream. Like, I I did all of it. I literally did all the jobs there except maybe bookkeeper.

Scott Cowan [00:10:04]:

Okay. Well, which might have been helpful when you started your own company, but, you know, that’s

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:10:08]:

I I got that from the nonprofit. Then I knew that through the finance part. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:10:13]:

So when you started with fourteen flavors, what was a hit? What did people what did people come line up around the corner? What were they coming back for? What was what was popular at first?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:10:23]:

I was trying to do a lot of I was trying to do things that people hadn’t necessarily heard of mixed with the classics and even doing things that people hadn’t heard of in a, like, classic way. Like, I wanted them to be new classics. I would say one of the new classics, was honey lavender because it was just so uber local. And one of my sort of progressive values that I was trying to put in the whole business model was buying as much local as possible. Right. And I’ve always had pretty strict sourcing guidelines for ingredients and other products like paper products and stuff. So we started buying lavender and honey locally, and making that flavor. And it was a total hit and people hadn’t really, you know, had that flavor combination in 02/2008.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:11:19]:

What else was really popular? I have to say, like, I was an okay ice cream maker in 02/2008, but I didn’t go to pastry school. I I’m not a chef. So a lot of my flavors have gotten way better over the years. Okay. Like, I don’t even think I, today, would like the chocolate ice cream that I was making in two thousand eight because our chocolate has gotten so good.

Scott Cowan [00:11:47]:

Okay. Because

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:11:48]:

I was making it with cocoa powder back then, which was kind of like the way. But then I worked with an awesome chef I had in, like, 02/1011, and we tweaked the recipe and started using BO chocolate bars that we melted down in a pot with cream and then put that in the ice cream machine. That’s why our ice cream is called, our chocolate flavor is called melted chocolate now. And it’s it’s the best.

Scott Cowan [00:12:15]:

So I I I have to interject because this is just the way I am. The the words ice cream and chef combined, I I kinda turned my head and go, never thought of ice cream chef combined.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:12:29]:

Yeah. So that’s so People who are really, really good at at making ice cream and who, like, get formally trained, they go to pastry school and they get a pastry chef degree. And I have, five or six pastry chefs in my company. So every ice cream, every Molly Moon’s ice cream shop, except for two, make their own ice cream in the shop. We don’t have, like, a big plant where we make all the ice cream and send it to the shops. Each shop because a huge part of what I’m trying to do at Molly Moon’s, is create more good jobs. So every shop, is like its own little economy of jobs. It has a manager that’s a really great manager job in the food and beverage industry, and it has a chef.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:13:21]:

And that’s another really good job with awesome benefits and a nice salary. And, and then we have shift leaders and ice cream makers and scoopers. So that’s like the little sort of ecosystem or economy of, of our ice cream shops. So a lot of ice cream shops just have, like, a manager and scoopers. But I

Scott Cowan [00:13:45]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:13:45]:

And I’m always trying to help, like, hire people when they’re young, don’t have much job experience as scoopers or ice cream makers, then move them up the ladder through a program we have called career pathways.

Scott Cowan [00:13:59]:

Very interesting. Since you’re making see, I told you we’re gonna go off the rails and, you know, we’re talking about your story. Now we’re we’re talking about today. You’re making ice cream in each store. Do the stores have any say in what they’re making? Like, if the ice the chef there really loves strawberry, or is strawberry gonna be on in in Wallingford versus, say, at University Village? Or

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:14:24]:

Right.

Scott Cowan [00:14:24]:

Is it you know? Yeah.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:14:26]:

That’s a good question.

Scott Cowan [00:14:26]:

Creativity is there?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:14:27]:

I like so we’re the chefs are super creative. I think everybody in our company is really creative, but I also think it’s really important that the customer have a consistent experience. Okay. Especially, like, I have a child with autism. She needs to know that her favorite flavor is gonna be at Molly Moon’s, whether we’re at Molly Moon’s, you know, in Wallingford or Capitol Hill.

Scott Cowan [00:14:52]:

Well, let me interrupt. What is her favorite flavor?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:14:55]:

She’s funny. She kinda bounces between a couple. Okay. She loves melted chocolate, but she also often goes for sweet cream with hot fudge on top. Yeah. She’s a classic gal. But back to, like, when we launched, I just I didn’t say the most popular flavor, and I feel like I should. Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:15:19]:

When I opened, Franz had salted caramel, you know, her famous salted caramels. But salted caramel wasn’t really a thing otherwise. And so I made an extremely salty salted caramel ice cream, and it was so polarizing. People would take get a sample and, like, literally look for a place to spit it out. I would say 20 of people who tasted it were like that, and they were like, why would you put so much salt in this? This is crazy. But it was our top selling flavor. Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:15:57]:

Well, there’s there’s something to be said about being polarizing. Yeah. You know, that And

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:16:00]:

it’s still, like, consistently in the top three or four four flavors and has been for thirteen years.

Scott Cowan [00:16:06]:

Wow. Okay. And

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:16:07]:

that we have not changed the recipe at all. People are always emailing us, like, you need to take the salt out of the salted caramels. But it’s funny because I you know, now salted caramel is such a popular flavor,

Scott Cowan [00:16:18]:

and

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:16:19]:

you can get it in frappuccinos, and you can get it in all kinds of ice cream and whatever. You know? And whenever I get a salted caramel anything, I’m like, there’s no salt in here.

Scott Cowan [00:16:31]:

What salts are you using in the are you using a local

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:16:35]:

We don’t use, like, a fancy, like, Jacobsen or anything. We just use

Scott Cowan [00:16:38]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:16:39]:

An Alaskan sea salt that’s that’s bulk, but, yeah, just sea Okay. Sea salt.

Scott Cowan [00:16:46]:

So your first location was a a success from day one. Where was your next location?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:16:52]:

Capitol Hill. Okay. Mostly because that was my neighborhood.

Scott Cowan [00:16:57]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:16:57]:

But also well, that’s not not mostly. I’m super data driven and always have been. So when I was writing my business plan, I did a lot of market research on where ice cream is bought and sold the most. And, I figured out that the zip codes that buy the most ice cream or where the most ice cream are sold have higher than average household income and higher than average kids per household.

Scott Cowan [00:17:30]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:17:31]:

So I looked for the ZIP codes where that was true in Seattle, and there were two top ZIP codes, 98103 Wallingford and 98122 Capitol Hill. So when I went to open my first location, I hired a real estate broker and I said, I only wanna look at spaces that are less than a thousand square feet in these two ZIP codes.

Scott Cowan [00:17:57]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:17:58]:

So the first space I found was in Wallingford. But then when I wanted to open another one, I was like, okay, I better go to that other ZIP code that meets my top criteria.

Scott Cowan [00:18:10]:

Are all your stores still around a thousand square feet, or have you you’ve got a couple of walk ups. So if I’m red I

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:18:16]:

have two little tiny walk up windows. One of them is, like, maybe 70 square feet.

Scott Cowan [00:18:24]:

Oh my gosh.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:18:24]:

Yeah. And the other one is, like, a 10 square feet.

Scott Cowan [00:18:29]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:18:30]:

Yeah. So they are teeny, teeny tiny and so cute. They’re mini shops. Mini shops. And then my largest shop, I just opened last summer in the middle of the pandemic, and it was so stressful. But it’s 2,600 square feet. And that And that’s in Bellevue. That’s in Bellevue.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:18:46]:

And that’s like we basically put in a full pastry kitchen there

Scott Cowan [00:18:53]:

A lot.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:18:53]:

Where we’re making a lot of our inclusions. We’re making the granola for our Yeti flavor. We’re making the brownies for our warm brownie sundaes. We’re making a lot of the inclusions because we were baking everything in every shop.

Scott Cowan [00:19:08]:

Mhmm.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:19:08]:

And we were just sort of running out of space to do the more complicated stuff. Like, we make our own cookie dough for the cookie dough flavor, and everything’s made from scratch. Okay. Wow. And then the Bellevue shop also has two huge freezers, like bigger than my first sturd studio apartment. And one of them is just for wholesale because last spring when we shut all of our shops due to the pandemic, we started selling ice cream in grocery stores and now we’re in 120 grocery stores in Western Washington.

Scott Cowan [00:19:46]:

Wow. So what who’s carrying that? What stores what chains are carrying you?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:19:52]:

We started with PCC, co ops in Seattle and around and then Met Market. Those were our first two customers, and they were so incredibly generous to us in, like, April of twenty twenty when we really needed a win. And they really helped us get our wholesale program off the ground and got us through last summer in many ways. But since then, we’ve added Town and Country markets and Hagen’s markets and then QFCs in Western Washington. And we’re still hoping to grow into, like, other Kroger brands like Fred Meyer. I’d love to be in Fred Meyer.

Scott Cowan [00:20:33]:

I was just gonna ask because QFC is Kroger. Does QFC have the local ability to bring you in, or did you have to go to Cincinnati and deal with Kroger corporate?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:20:43]:

Well, nobody went anywhere because it was the pandemic, but we Zoomed it. That’s true. Our our sales, our marketing and sales director, I think, worked with a couple national folks, but I think they have a lot of buying, discussion locally. And we have an awesome rep at QFC here in Washington who has really championed the brand.

Scott Cowan [00:21:05]:

Yeah. I’ve always gotten that impression that QFC had that latitude. I grew up in the food business and, long, long, long, long time ago. And it’s always seemed like QFC, yeah, had that they were granted that latitude within reason to to experiment with local stuff, which is Yeah. Helps those stores have a local flavor.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:21:25]:

It’s been really cool to see in the pandemic because, like, I love Tutta Bella pizza. And that’s a really awesome local company. And I was worried about Joe and his employees last spring. And then I saw his salads and his premade, like, pasta dishes that are so excellent in the deli at KFC, and I started buying them. And now I think that’s doing really well for them. So KFC, I think, did a really good job of helping a lot of local businesses last year.

Scott Cowan [00:21:59]:

That’s that’s awesome because I don’t think I don’t think there’s any of us, period, that had any clue how to navigate last year. No. What on earth were we gonna do? And in my conversations I’ve had over the last year with people, it’s been pretty fascinating. I think the most overused word is the word pivot. And I think we’ve all just pivot. I mean, it’s like but it’s been really interesting to me to listen to business owners adapt and come out of this, if you will, with a completely additional viable line of business that they weren’t in eighteen months ago. Yeah. I mean might not have ever tried.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:22:44]:

I’ve been told for so many years to diversify and, you know, you’re just doing your thing and your thing is hard enough. So I never really made time to diversify to grocery, and I’m really glad that we, you know, had to. And now as we come back and our retail shops are gonna do well again, we do have this extra other whole branch of our business. And I think it alone is has kinda turned into like a million dollar a year revenue stream.

Scott Cowan [00:23:19]:

That’s exciting. Yeah. That’s exciting. Because it allows you to do other things because I’d like to kind of transition and talk about some of the things you do, not just for your employees, but the milk fund and things like that, where your company has a very well documented charitable giving. So I’ll just lob it back over to you. Can you can you, can you elaborate on that for us?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:23:44]:

Yeah. So, I mean, I’ve always felt like philanthropy was important and our sort of phrase we use to guide things or I guess mission statement. I don’t know. All that stuff is so cheesy, but, the phrase I’ve used since I opened was like, I’m making the world better one scoop at a time.

Scott Cowan [00:24:04]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:24:05]:

And that means a lot of things. It means making the world better in the way that I’m an employer, making the world better in the ingredients that I buy, but also making the world better through community giving. So from the beginning, you know, I was just kind of saying yes to things I could. I wasn’t super strategic about it. But within a year of being in business, I realized that I needed to be really specific. I needed to sort of ask myself what was important to me and then create, like, a giving mission and say no to the things that didn’t fit into it so that I could make an impact and invest in the things that were most important to me. And then I and I had just kinda gotten myself organized in that manner. And then my little sister who, lived with me when I opened Molly Moon’s, and worked for me.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:25:02]:

She was my first employee, and she also worked

Scott Cowan [00:25:04]:

Oh, okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:25:05]:

At QFC in the deli in our neighborhood. She died in a motorcycle accident when she was 22. And that she was her name was Anna. She was the most generous person. Like, she really was someone who would give you the clothes she was wearing if you needed them. And she actually got fired from QFC for giving too many samples to the homeless youth, in Capitol Hill. So as I was thinking about how to, remember her and, you know, help create a legacy in her name, I realized that I wanted to work with a food bank, and create a way for families to have fresh milk. Milk is a thing that is sort of a joke in our family.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:26:06]:

Like Anna and I growing up growing up just drank so much milk, and our aunts and uncles would be amazed. And my mom would always be like, oh my god, you guys. You drink so much milk. It’s so expensive. And so I walked across the street from the Wallingford shop to Family Works Food Bank and Resource Center, who we had been working with and donating to over our first couple years of business. And I talked to the executive director about honoring Anna, and we created the Anna Banana Milk Fund. And my employees and my friends signed up and started giving $10 a month, which, provided a half gallon of milk to, families every week that they came to the food bank.

Scott Cowan [00:26:56]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:26:57]:

And that fund has now been around about ten years, a little over ten years. And I I don’t know the numbers off the top of my head, but we’ve given hundreds of thousands of dollars, to food banks, to buy fresh milk. Because most people who rely on food banks, some of them have never had fresh milk. Like, I’ve met adults at Family Works who have never had fresh milk. They’ve only had powdered or canned milk. And milk is just, in my opinion, a really important building block, especially for kids and for brain development. So it’s been really awesome. And now we partner with eight food banks so that we have a food bank partner in every neighborhood where we have an ice cream shop.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:27:47]:

And, before the pandemic, we were giving about $10,000 a year to each of those food banks. And we had to take a pause last year to, you know, stay, solvent, but we’ll go back to that this year.

Scott Cowan [00:28:03]:

That’s that’s wonderful. Thanks. So, when I was doing research, sounds highbrow, but when I was looking online, I’d like to just touch on something else you guys do, which you have this for lack of I’ll describe it as transparency with pay throughout the entire company. Yeah. I watched a video. You were talking to some I can’t remember the name of the company, but you were talking about it. And the the interviewer was just saying that he’d, he’d talked to people he knew and they said they wouldn’t do it. And then, Glenn Kelman from Redfin was on the back half of that interview.

Scott Cowan [00:28:50]:

Are you does that jog them?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:28:52]:

Yeah. It was Vice News.

Scott Cowan [00:28:54]:

Thank you. Yeah. I couldn’t I just okay. And so what I enter let me see if I interpreted this correctly. And then if if I’m wrong, I I want you to correct me. But but, basically, as a company, you you sat down with your your team, and you went through and made everybody’s pay, whatever job they are, whatever location they are, it’s transparent. So I’m guessing that if I wanted to know what the scooper at the other store was making, if I asked correctly, I could find out. I don’t think you published it on the walls.

Scott Cowan [00:29:25]:

I mean, I don’t think it’s end up in the employee break room.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:29:28]:

Well, basically, it is digitally. Like, anybody can look up the spreadsheet anytime and see what everybody made in the last year.

Scott Cowan [00:29:36]:

And that seemed to be received very well by your by your team.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:29:41]:

Yeah, totally.

Scott Cowan [00:29:42]:

Is it still being received well by the team?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:29:44]:

Yeah. Yeah. I think paid transparency is really important. And I think if we’re gonna fix a lot of the gender and race inequities in this nation, but Seattle’s kind of at the top of the list of inequity. We need to be transparent. People need to know what other people are making in order to best advocate for themselves And people need context to advocate for themselves. And people need to know, like, what the possibilities are. I think one of the things that nobody really thinks about when they think about paid transparency is that it’s inspiring.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:30:25]:

If you’re working sort of at the bottom of the wage ladder in a company, but you think that you’re smart and you could do the job of your boss or your boss’s boss or your boss’s boss’s boss, and you see what they make, it gives you something to strive for and it’s concrete.

Scott Cowan [00:30:45]:

How long ago was that Vice News video published?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:30:49]:

I think that was in 02/2018.

Scott Cowan [00:30:52]:

So I think correct me if I’m wrong. I think at that time, your starting salary wage was $18 an hour. Yeah. And you and you did away with tips in your store.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:31:01]:

Yeah. That

Scott Cowan [00:31:03]:

seems like a great wage to me. I mean, and it sounds ridiculously expensive. It’s tough, but I get it. It but it seems like that’s an awesome first level benefit. Yeah. You’re gonna be if I’m going to be working at your shop, I’m making $18 an hour at a minimum. That’s a great place to start. But also you guys do offer benefits and all that as well, correct?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:31:24]:

Yeah. If you work for us twenty hours a week, you’re also going to get free health insurance. And if you work for us at all, we give you a subsidized, like we pay for 70% of your transit pass.

Scott Cowan [00:31:39]:

Wow.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:31:39]:

And we match your four zero one ks contributions. And the health insurance includes dental and vision and life insurance. And, what else? We have an employee assistance program that helps people with a whole range of just like life help, that people can reach out to. And then we have this, I mentioned career pathways program.

Scott Cowan [00:32:08]:

Right. Thank you for, I’m gonna have to. It’s kind of an

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:32:10]:

internal, way of helping people get to the next level in their career. And they might use it to get promotions here at Molly Moons and a lot of people do, but it also kind of qualifies you and gets you ready to be qualified for the next jump in your career outside of our company too.

Scott Cowan [00:32:32]:

So I just think all of that is just is fantastic because you’re investing in people on an individual level. That investment in that person may not pay off directly to Molly Moon. They may leave and go to QFC and be an assistant manager, but you’re investing in people. You’re giving them an opportunity. And and that’s all I mean, what more can what more can an employee ask for than an opportunity to to to grow? I think that’s fabulous. I think that’s I mean, wow, that’s just that’s very cool. I don’t know why that sounds I sound I feel like I’m sounding somber and that should be something we should be celebrating. No, I shouldn’t sound somber.

Scott Cowan [00:33:15]:

I should be like, this is awesome.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:33:16]:

Yeah, it’s cool. I forgot a benefit that we have because now everybody in Washington state gets it, but I wanna mention it, which is we’ve had paid family leave, twelve weeks of paid family leave for a long time. And then I worked on, the lobbying effort at the state legislature to make that a Washington state program. So now everyone in Washington state gets what folks at Molly Moon’s get, which is twelve weeks of paid family leave if you have a child, whether you’re, male or female, if you adopt, if you foster, if you need to take care of a parent because they’re sick or they have an injury, if you need to recover from surgery, folks can also use it, to recover from, transgender surgeries. And that has been a very, very appreciated benefit at our company. And I know from the public at large in Washington.

Scott Cowan [00:34:11]:

That’s awesome. But one benefit you haven’t we haven’t talked about yet that I’m you’d be remiss if you didn’t offer this. So what’s the free ice cream deal?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:34:19]:

Oh, yeah. Everybody gets free ice cream. Yeah. Charlie, my boss at the Big Dipper in Montana was really good about that. He was just like, eat ice cream. You’ll get sick of it. You’ll you’ll you’ll you might eat a lot. You might eat, you know, into your paycheck or whatever in the beginning, but you’ll you’ll just enjoy ice cream, and I want you to taste it, and I want you to appreciate it and, you know, always have the new flavors.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:34:47]:

And so yeah. Well, then you

Scott Cowan [00:34:49]:

can speak to it. If somebody comes in and asks about the lavender honey or the the salted caramel, and if I haven’t tried it, I’m gonna look at them with a well, I don’t know. Here, try you know? I mean Yeah. I think that’s great.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:34:59]:

It’s also good marketing. Like, when my employees show up at a barbecue with a few pints of Molly Moons, like

Scott Cowan [00:35:06]:

They’re pretty popular, aren’t they?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:35:07]:

That’s great. You know, and that’s that’s making their friends and family like us too.

Scott Cowan [00:35:12]:

That’s cool. Alright. So when you started, let’s okay. So when you started, you had 14 flavors. Currently, today at your stores in May of twenty twenty one, how many flavors do you have right now?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:35:24]:

Wait for it. 15. 15.

Scott Cowan [00:35:28]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:35:30]:

Basically, I buy this kind of dipping cabinet. That’s the freezer that you scoop ice cream out of that is really awesome at quality control and holding the right temp for the ice cream. And it comfortably fits 14 flavors, And it Okay. Can squeeze 15. But I don’t really have any desire to I mean, so we we have 10 no. We have 11 always flavors now.

Scott Cowan [00:35:59]:

11 always flavors.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:36:00]:

And the the eleventh was a vegan because we realized that we didn’t wanna just have seasonal vegan flavors. We wanted to have an always vegan flavor. But then we have four seasonal ice cream flavors every month. So we have 48 seasonal flavors per year in addition to our 11 always or year round flavors.

Scott Cowan [00:36:20]:

So question that comes up here is you said the freezer keeps it at the optimal temperature. Mhmm. What is the optimal temperature?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:36:29]:

Oh, I don’t know if I should tell you that. You might go start an ice

Scott Cowan [00:36:33]:

cream shop. Oh, is it proprietary?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:36:35]:

I mean, it kinda depends on, like, really, honestly, the climate in the shop. And even,

Scott Cowan [00:36:40]:

like, if

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:36:41]:

it’s north facing light or south facing light. But it’s around five to seven degrees. My employees would probably say seven or eight because if it’s colder than, like, the chocolate is really hard to scoop.

Scott Cowan [00:36:58]:

But it really is that sensitive that the direction of the light coming in can impact. I didn’t think about this.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:37:05]:

Yeah. Well, it’s like your shop is really sunny all the time, then it’s warmer inside. And then you gotta kind of adjust the temp on everything, right? Like the AC and the freezers and

Scott Cowan [00:37:19]:

So you have 11 regulars. Yeah. And then you rotate four through.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:37:23]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:37:25]:

At the time at this time today, what what are your what are your seasonal flavors in in springtime here?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:37:32]:

What’s going on? It’s May, and we celebrate the Molly Moon’s birthday in May. So we did a collection of four cake flavors this month.

Scott Cowan [00:37:41]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:37:41]:

And we had, strawberry cheesecake, which was phenomenal. We had German chocolate cake, my childhood favorite. I have eaten so much of it this month.

Scott Cowan [00:37:53]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:37:54]:

We had birthday cake, kinda classic. Kids love it. Also, for some reason, fraternity brothers love birthday cake ice cream. And Okay. I know. It’s just something I’ve noticed over the years. Like, in our shops where there are a lot of university students, guys from fraternities who come in together, they love birthday cake ice cream. It’s funny.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:38:19]:

I’m like a really good, flavor profiler. Like, I can often you know, someone will walk in and I’ll be like, they’re gonna get x flavor.

Scott Cowan [00:38:29]:

Alright. Well, let me put you on the spot. What do you think I would do?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:38:31]:

Okay. Oh, well

Scott Cowan [00:38:34]:

For those of you, no one can see this, but she’s she’s bouncing around in her seat kinda like

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:38:40]:

So I think that you would really dig Yeti or Sasquatch for a few reasons.

Scott Cowan [00:38:47]:

What are those two? Because I’m not familiar with those two.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:38:49]:

Yeah. I think you like inclusion. Is it

Scott Cowan [00:38:52]:

because of the beard?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:38:53]:

I mean, I’m thinking about your music history. I’m thinking about your love of Washington. I’m thinking a little bit about your age. Sorry. I do put that in my flavor profiling. And I think you would like inclusions. These are both Washington ode to Washington flavors. Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:39:15]:

And they’re, like, classic tasting, but with a twist. So Okay. Sasquatch was created first. In the February, my really good friend, Adam Zacks, who created the, Sasquatch Music Festival.

Scott Cowan [00:39:34]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:39:34]:

He and I were, like, spitballing what if we made a Sasquatch flavor. And so I was like, well, what would be in it? And he came up with it. So it’s chocolate ice cream with a swirl of caramel sauce and then lots of chocolate chunks and chunks of homemade granola.

Scott Cowan [00:39:54]:

Okay. Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:39:56]:

I think you would really dig that one. And then several years later, our employees were like hardcore lobbying for us to make a Yeti flavor that is all the same inclusions, but just sweet cream ice cream.

Scott Cowan [00:40:15]:

So

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:40:15]:

Do those sound good to you?

Scott Cowan [00:40:17]:

They sound good to me, but I’ll be honest with you. This month, I would probably either go for the strawberry shirt or the the strawberry cheesecake or the German chocolate cake. That would be that would be taking the safe route, but the the Sasquatch sounds awesome.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:40:32]:

If you let any German chocolate cake, you will love Sasquatch.

Scott Cowan [00:40:37]:

Yeah. Yeah. Then yeah. And I was like, okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:40:39]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:40:40]:

Alright. That’s I have to come over. It’s another reason to visit Seattle again in the near future. Well, okay. So you do four a month. How what’s the creative process there on those four? Do you do this the ice cream chefs, are they doing it? Is it is it your team members?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:41:00]:

It’s super collaborative, but I’m the ultimate decision maker.

Scott Cowan [00:41:04]:

Right.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:41:05]:

So we have quarterly meetings. We try to be a year ahead. So, like, I’m about to have a meeting where we’re talking about the flavors for the second quarter of twenty twenty two.

Scott Cowan [00:41:17]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:41:17]:

And we’ll all get together. We’re actually all gonna get together in the same room for the first time in so long because we we’re all vaccinated now. And we use a huge whiteboard. And, first, we put up the data. We put up the sales data of seasonal flavors from that quarter the previous year and look at how things sold in that season before. Then we kind of like erase the flavors that sold like less than five and a half or 5.9% of total sales. Then we have our seasonal flavors that are like viable candidates to come back. Then So

Scott Cowan [00:41:57]:

they can come back. So it’s not just a one and done. So German chocolate cake may come back next year.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:42:03]:

Oh my gosh. If we didn’t have some of our flavors come back every year, I think our customers would revolt. I’ve never not had cherry chunk in July because it’s so popular.

Scott Cowan [00:42:18]:

Can any of these seasonals bump out one of the the 11 regulars?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:42:23]:

Yes, and that happens.

Scott Cowan [00:42:24]:

Yeah. Alright. So it’s a competitive ice cream.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:42:27]:

It’s totally competitive always. And if we have a seasonal that just kind of blows away, Mhmm. Like one of our top always flavors, then we will look at bumping the bottom always flavor off the always list. We just did that. We bumped Earl Grey ice cream and put into Always rotation, our cookies and cream. And our cookies and cream are the best cookies and cream ice cream you’ve ever had. We make the cookies from scratch. We make the cream chili the cream filling from scratch.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:43:09]:

We chop it all up and pour it by the cup into the tubs of ice cream and stir it in. And when we add a little bit of salt, which makes all the flavors and the richness just pop.

Scott Cowan [00:43:25]:

Alright. So now I’ve got all sorts of questions, but when you’re when you’re making a batch of ice cream, how big, because you’re making them in the store, so these aren’t, this is really small batch. Yeah. So how big of a batch are you making?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:43:40]:

I have two sizes of ice cream machines, a 20 quart machine and a 40 quart machine. So 20 quart machine, a batch will be about five gallons of ice cream in two and a half gallon tubs. And of And

Scott Cowan [00:43:55]:

how long does that take to make?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:43:56]:

About Between thirteen and seventeen minutes, depending on the flavor and the age of the machine and the sharpness of the blades.

Scott Cowan [00:44:03]:

That’s really fast to me. That seems very

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:44:05]:

fast. Okay. And, a 40 port machine can make double that. So about 10 gallons of ice cream for two and a half gallon tubs.

Scott Cowan [00:44:18]:

And this is about as fast for that machine as well? Or does

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:44:21]:

it It takes the same amount of time. It’s just a bigger barrel. Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:44:25]:

Alright. Okay. So you’re planning strategic planning for second quarter twenty twenty two?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:44:30]:

Yeah. So we You’re

Scott Cowan [00:44:32]:

all sitting We

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:44:32]:

look at the data from the past, then we go to our creative brains, and we’ve all come with lists of flavors that we’ve, like, come up with that we’ve never done before.

Scott Cowan [00:44:43]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:44:43]:

So we talk about if it sounds good, how things that are like that have sold in the past. And then we usually pick I don’t know what the ratio is. Maybe fifty fifty, like half of the seasonal flavors for next Q two twenty twenty two will be repeats, will be comebacks, and half of them will be original flavors. And then the head chef assigns R and D tasks to the other chefs. Everybody gets assigned a few flavors to work on and create. And, and then we leave, I’ve approved the concept of what we’re gonna R and D. The chef has assigned the r and d work. And then in a month or so, we’ll have a tasting.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:45:30]:

And each chef will bring their flavors, and they usually bring two versions. Like, this one has a little bit more salt, or this one has a little bit more of the sauce in it, or whatever. Then we all taste, and discuss, and then I’ll either approve one of those two versions, or I’ll say, you know, why don’t you try this with a little less of this or more of this or add that? And we sometimes have to do a second round of tastings, but within probably two months of the flavor meeting, we’ll have it set and worked out for what that quarter’s flavors will be.

Scott Cowan [00:46:11]:

Alright. So I love this question. I love asking people this question. So you’ve got these meetings, you’re brainstorming. People are suggesting this combo. There there there’s everyone’s coming to the table with ideas. Not all of them can have been great. So if you guys ever thought something was gonna be really delicious and it just didn’t work.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:46:33]:

Yeah. Totally. Especially in the early days. So, you know, I feel like Molly Moon’s gets better and better at what it does all the time because we rely on historical data.

Scott Cowan [00:46:45]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:46:46]:

In the early days, I didn’t have a lot of data. So it was more like throwing spaghetti at the wall. Right? I made a Beecher’s cheese ice cream. Nobody bought that. I thought it was delicious, but

Scott Cowan [00:47:00]:

Which cheese did you Flagship.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:47:03]:

It was salty and cheesy, and, it was awesome on top of a slice of apple pie. It was cool alone. I thought it was great, but that was a dud.

Scott Cowan [00:47:20]:

I would’ve tried it. I don’t know that I don’t I mean, I certainly would’ve I certainly would’ve tried it.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:47:25]:

Yeah. I think because I like beetroots cheeses. Better maybe as a pie pairing or a flavor. Okay. And maybe people didn’t want, like, a whole scoop of it. But that was really a fun partnership, and I went to New York to promote my cookbook, and I scooped that flavor in the Beecher’s Cheese in the Flatiron District in Manhattan. Okay. And that was super fun.

Scott Cowan [00:47:47]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:47:48]:

Okay. Another dead was baby beet sorbet.

Scott Cowan [00:47:54]:

Yeah. You lost me that.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:47:55]:

Again, I thought that was good. We did a spring garlic ice cream. That was a dead.

Scott Cowan [00:48:03]:

Have you ever had any success with garlic in any form on an ice cream?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:48:07]:

No. But something I haven’t done and I want to do is, like, fried garlic bits as a topping.

Scott Cowan [00:48:18]:

That’s interesting. Yeah. That’s an interesting topic. Okay. So you you have final say? Yes. Has there ever been one that you reluctantly said, okay, and you were really surprised that it exceeded you know, you were like, kind of on I don’t I can’t see you as being the person that’s gonna do something if you’re on the fence. I think you’re you’re like, yes. We’re gonna do this or you’re there’s probably no, like, wishy washy in this.

Scott Cowan [00:48:46]:

But

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:48:46]:

Yeah. Not wishy washy. There is a flavor that I do not like, and I’m I’m actually blanking on what it is right now. But we’ve made it, and it does well enough. But I Enough. For the life of me can’t remember what it is. It might come back to me later.

Scott Cowan [00:49:10]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:49:11]:

One that I love that’s a dud, but it has a cult following, so we tend to do it every year, Justin Pints, is salted licorice ice cream.

Scott Cowan [00:49:22]:

Oh, yeah. I could see you either really liking that or really not, and I’m on board with that. My son has a friend from Finland, and he came to visit and he brought us some of that. And at first, I was, like, making really quick. Now I’m like, how do I get more of this stuff? This yeah. I could When I When does that when would that be coming out?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:49:47]:

It’ll come out next April, probably.

Scott Cowan [00:49:49]:

April. That’s a great month to have.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:49:51]:

When I was working at the Big Dipper or no. At my first ice cream shop job in Boise, Idaho called Goodies. Goodies is like a candy shop, like a old school, more like a soda fountain. And they have, like, this huge wall of candy and then the ice cream part of the store, and then they also make their own homemade caramel corn, which is amazing. And it used to be kind of a hazing ritual, I think, for the employees at Goody’s to make new employees eat that hard pack of double salt licorice from, like, Denmark. And, you know, they did it to me, made me put two pieces in my mouth, and I was like, oh, you all don’t know. But I have a really good friend from Denmark in college, and I love this stuff. And so, yeah.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:50:40]:

Yeah. You either love it or you hate it. It’s funny that it can even be considered like something that would be a punishment, and then other people really dig it.

Scott Cowan [00:50:49]:

So so

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:50:52]:

Apple pie ice cream. That’s the one I’m like, I don’t get it. But it’s a really popular seller. We do it every November. And I don’t love it, but everybody else does.

Scott Cowan [00:51:06]:

So you’ve you’ve opened up retail. You’ve navigated the economy. You’ve got wholesale going now. More of the same in the future? That kind of the is that kind of the general blend for the future? The thing

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:51:20]:

I always say when people ask me what’s next for Molly Moons is, every ice every neighborhood deserves a Molly Moons. You know, it’s it’s they’re neighborhood ice cream shops when it comes down to it, and it takes the right mix of other things in the neighborhood to, help me know that that that location will be successful. But I really do think every neighborhood deserves a Molly Moon’s. K.

Scott Cowan [00:51:52]:

We got a lot of neighborhoods in the cellar.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:51:53]:

Yeah. And then

Scott Cowan [00:51:54]:

You got you got plenty

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:51:55]:

of growth. Yes. Agreed. And, you know, we’re going outside of Seattle slowly but surely. We have a shop in Redmond that’s our our highest volume shop. And then we have two in Bellevue. They do really well. And I am gonna open another shop, in 2023 North Of Seattle.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:52:16]:

Okay. But in terms of, like, other what’s next, I’ve only done a couple of things outside of just building ice cream shops that have been, like, fun and interesting and an extension of what we do and have turned into, like, a smart financial decision. Mhmm. And one of them was I in 02/2015, I made it a goal to invest so heavily in merchandise that we, that we added as much revenue as, like, building a new ice cream shop. And

Scott Cowan [00:52:58]:

So in in swag or Yeah. Merch, like shirts and Yeah.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:53:02]:

And so it took it took a big investment. I spent over a hundred and $50,000, I think, on remodeling all of the merchandise walls in all of our shops to be like a beautiful, customizable, like, flexible system. It there are these really pretty walls with holes for dowels and a grid and shelves. And and then I had, like, the palette to paint on. And then we started coming up with, you know, how many items do we need? What what kinds of items do we need to produce to target different demographics of customers? And it took a couple years, but we now we sell like, you know, three, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of merch. So not as much as an ice cream shop, like a Target ice cream shop really would sell, like, a million dollars worth of ice cream, but it was an added revenue stream that’s been really awesome for our bottom line and really fun for our customers and really good marketing. So I’m always kinda trying to figure out, like, are there other projects like that to add? And I read one of my favorite takeaways from reading books by Howard Schultz, is the, like, think about what your customer will give your company specifically permission to sell them. What else? Mhmm.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:54:33]:

Because, you know, your customer might want a lot of things, but what do they want you to try to sell them?

Scott Cowan [00:54:39]:

That’s very insightful. Very insightful. When you’re not creating new ice cream flavors, when you’re not taking great care of your employees, what do you do for fun?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:54:52]:

I’m a CEO and a mom of small children. I don’t have a ton of fun.

Scott Cowan [00:54:57]:

Well, there must be stuff you guys like.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:54:59]:

Yeah. I mean, I love my kids. I love spending time with my kids. I have a three year old and an eight year old daughters. We joined a pool last year, so we really like to go swimming. I’m a pretty big homebody. I love my house. I like to garden.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:55:18]:

I really don’t like to leave my ZIP code if I don’t have to. We live near a park.

Scott Cowan [00:55:25]:

So in your ZIP code, any good coffee?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:55:29]:

Well, I have the best barista on the West Coast, if not the country, that I get to sleep next to every night. My husband owned a coffee shop called Union Coffee in Seattle for three or four years, and then he sold it last year, during the pandemic to stay home and take care of our kids so I could save the company. And he he pivoted. I know you don’t like that word, but I kinda do. And,

Scott Cowan [00:55:59]:

Well, it’s it’s just because I get dizzy because I keep thinking

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:56:03]:

about my spinning. Right. Well, life of a small business owner, man. So he connected with all of his favorite customers from the shop who really liked the sort of high end direct trade, super nerdy. What notes does this bean have, and what did the roast add? Like, I don’t even get a lot of this stuff or I don’t I don’t get too deep into it. But he did that and he, created a coffee club, a subscription club. So he wakes up every morning and, I got us a La Marzocco espresso machine for our seven year wedding anniversary.

Scott Cowan [00:56:47]:

I think that’s what it’s supposed to be. I think I need to talk to my wife.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:56:50]:

I think that’s the seven year gift. Yeah. And he makes me coffee.

Scott Cowan [00:56:56]:

Thought it should be.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:56:56]:

He makes me coffee every day. Multiple coffees a day.

Scott Cowan [00:57:00]:

So how do you take it? How do you drink your coffee? What what’s the what’s the beverage? The the how do

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:57:05]:

you have

Scott Cowan [00:57:06]:

your espresso or your

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:57:07]:

Just like my ice cream. Lots of milk and sugar, which my husband hates because he’s such a coffee straight up coffee guy. But, you know, my first love is ice cream. My second love is coffee. I really need both. I drink a latte with a little maybe like a half a teaspoon of sugar every day, and I’ll only drink two or three throughout the day. And he makes me like cute latte art with hearts and swans on top, and it’s the best.

Scott Cowan [00:57:36]:

So in the ZIP code, any interesting places to grab lunch?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:57:42]:

Well, tons. Like Capitol Hill, Seattle, where I live, is an awesome food destination. Yeah. I think our favorite restaurant for the last several years has been this place called Plenty of Clouds, which is a Chinese restaurant that mixes, food from the Yunnan province and food from the Sichuan province in China. So that’s got those, numbing Szechuan peppers in a lot of it. It’s not food.

Scott Cowan [00:58:11]:

Numbing is a polite way of

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:58:13]:

saying it. Yeah. It’s not food we feed our kids, but that’s probably our favorite restaurant in our neighborhood.

Scott Cowan [00:58:19]:

Okay. Is there so for those people who are, you know, listening, where can they find more about what you’re doing and your shops? And where’s I’m I’m gonna guess where you’re gonna put them, but, you know, you you tell us, where can people find you online?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:58:35]:

Yeah. Our, website is mollymoon.com, and our Instagram is mollymoon ice cream. And if you really wanna be in the know and you wanna know, like, when flavors come out or when we drop special collections of pints, which we do, then you should probably subscribe to our newsletter on our website at mollymoon.com.

Scott Cowan [00:58:57]:

Awesome. Thank you so much. This has been well, I’m hungry now. And, but I’ve really enjoyed this because I think what you’re doing is awesome. I I really I love the sensibility of the company. The baby beet sorry. You lost me on that one. I just anything would be.

Scott Cowan [00:59:15]:

So let me I have to ask, do you guys do much with pumpkin?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:59:18]:

We always do a pumpkin clove flavor in October. Okay. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:59:24]:

Because I think we wouldn’t be Americans if we just, like, didn’t overdo something like pumpkin spice on everything.

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:59:33]:

We don’t really do this pumpkin spice thing.

Scott Cowan [00:59:36]:

But the whole you know, it’s it’s July. We can start talking about pumpkin. In

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:59:41]:

October, we do pumpkin clove. We usually have a sundae called the great pumpkin sundae that has, hot fudge and candied pepitas on top of pumpkin clove ice cream with whipped cream, and it’s delicious.

Scott Cowan [00:59:54]:

Alright. Sorry. I lied. One more question. What’s your favorite sundae that you guys do?

Molly Moon Neitzel [00:59:58]:

Oh, well, the always sundae on our menu is called Mollyman’s favorite sundae.

Scott Cowan [01:00:04]:

Okay.

Molly Moon Neitzel [01:00:04]:

And it is, a scoop of melted chocolate ice cream, a scoop of salted caramel, a, generous drizzle of hot fudge, candied hazelnuts, whipped cream, and a chook or cherry.

Scott Cowan [01:00:21]:

What’s your husband’s? What’s his choice?

Molly Moon Neitzel [01:00:25]:

He really likes the fruity flavors. We had a berry jam ice cream recently that he was all about

Scott Cowan [01:00:34]:

made with,

Molly Moon Neitzel [01:00:35]:

berries from the Skagit Valley.

Scott Cowan [01:00:40]:

Okay. I still have more questions. You’re back in the day when you’re in Montana scoop and ice cream, the owner said, go ahead, just eat. You’re gonna get tired of it. Have you gotten you haven’t gotten tired of it?

Molly Moon Neitzel [01:00:50]:

No, man. I get my daughter after school. We get ice cream, like, more days than I care to admit. And at tastings sometimes, like, we’ll do a tasting and I’ll be like, yes. This is the flavor. And then I’ll, like, take that pint home. I eat a lot of ice cream.

Scott Cowan [01:01:09]:

That’s serious. What a way to build a company that you want the product. I mean, that’s just the that’s perfect. I love it. Well, thank you so much. And, I’m I’m sure everyone’s enjoyed this episode. Appreciate you so much.

Molly Moon Neitzel [01:01:22]:

Thank you so much for having me.