QC, THAT'S WHERE!
QC, THAT'S WHERE!
QC, That's Where Tradition Tastes Sweet at Whitey's Ice Cream
What does it take to keep a family business thriving for generations? Join us as we sit down with Annika and Jon Tunberg from Whitey's Ice Cream, a beloved staple in the Quad Cities community. Jon reminisces about his early days with the company, from picking up trash in the parking lot before school to watching the business grow. Annika shares her insights on the unique dynamics of working with family, the invaluable lessons passed down through generations, and the essential role of cooperation and mutual respect in their success. This episode promises a heartwarming exploration of family bonds and business acumen.
Discover the deep-rooted connection Whitey's Ice Cream has with its local community. We'll share heartfelt stories about local loyalty to favorite flavors and the excitement surrounding seasonal treats. Learn how Whitey's has supported community initiatives like flood relief through their Mississippi Mud flavor and the ways they've integrated with local events such as the John Deere Classic and the Bix. Experience the sense of community pride and generosity that has helped Whitey's remain an integral part of the Quad Cities culture.
Peek behind the curtain to see the creativity and dedication that go into crafting Whitey's unique flavors. From surprising hits like the pineapple upside-down cake shake to unexpected flops like the chipotle chocolate flavor, we discuss the unpredictable nature of flavor popularity. Hear about the commitment to quality, the ingenuity of the staff in accommodating unique customer orders, and the strategic role of social media in maintaining Whitey's nostalgic connection with its fans. This episode is packed with delightful stories and insights that will make you appreciate every scoop of Whitey's Ice Cream even more.
QC, That's Where is a podcast powered by Visit Quad Cities. Through the people, partnerships, and personalities woven throughout the Quad Cities region, you'll meet real Quad Citizens and hear the untold stories of the region.
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Well, we've always said, you know, we wouldn't be where we are today without the Quad City community. No, no doubt about it. So we've always been so fortunate that the Quad Cities has embraced Whitey's and, you know, really made us their own. And so the Quad Cities obviously holds a very special place in our hearts and I think from a personal standpoint, it's such a great community that we have so much to offer. Without, you know, having lived in rather large cities, it's life's a little little easier here in a lot of ways. But also it's there's such a sense of community here that I don't think you get elsewhere.
Speaker 2:Where do you find a family of communities connected by the storied Mississippi river, where young explorers and dreamers, investors and entrepreneurs thrive? Where can you connect with real people living and creating in a place that's as genuine as it is quirky QC? That's when hey everyone.
Speaker 3:welcome back to the QC that's when podcast. I'm your host, Lea Nelson, and we have two very, very special guests for this week's show Probably the coolest father-daughter duo I know. They're from Whitey's, Annika and Jon Tunberg Guys. Thank you so much for joining us this week.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having us. We're excited to talk ice cream.
Speaker 3:Honestly, it's the best week ever getting to talk about ice cream. My parents want to go to Whitey's all the time. Everyone loves it. It's the place we send our visitors. So I'm excited to talk about Whitey's, but let's kind of start with the beginning. Jon, I'll start with you. You've been around this ice cream shop, whitey's, pretty much your whole life. Um, what has it been like, um, getting to work at Whitey's?
Speaker 4:uh, since you can remember, Well, my brother and I started picking uh trash up in the parking lot before grade school, I mean before school in the morning, and so yes. I've been a part of it all my life. I don't know any other thing.
Speaker 4:Oh, what's it? It's been great. You know, as I think back back in grade school, a lot of children didn't know what their fathers did for a living. You know whether they worked in the shops or whether they were an administrator somewhere. And yet we always knew what our folks did, and so did everybody else.
Speaker 3:Very true. I was like I don't think I knew what my dad did when I was growing up. I was told people like, oh, construction. And he's like, yeah, that's a little different or a little more in depth. But what's it like and either of you can answer this one, but what's it like working in a family business? I mean, john, you work with your brother, Jeff and Annika, you work with your dad and uncle. What's the family business dynamic for the both of you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 4:We've been fortunate, Jeff and and I to work with our parents for a lot of years before they passed, and we're very fortunate in the sense that Jeff and I get along very well. The standard joke is as long as he does what I say, we're fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:But no, we've been fortunate and blessed to be in a working environment every day, and yet we get along and at the end of the day, we're still speaking and we're still brothers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's. And Jeff's daughter, Jenny, my cousin, is back in the business as well, so it's really fun to be able to all work together and to get to see you know family you love every day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can't imagine what, like how cool that would be and you've got like your dad and your your boss, basically, but what, what is?
Speaker 4:it. I have to remind her that I am every so often.
Speaker 3:No, I love that. I was going to say it's like that kind of goes into. My next question is how does how does that work? I mean, obviously your dad is your dad. He's taught you all these lessons, but what has he taught you in the business world? Any anything that you're sticking in your back pocket as like a boss other than as?
Speaker 1:a dad? Yeah, no, Well, I mean, he's listening so we gotta be careful.
Speaker 1:But no, um, you know, I think my background was definitely not so much. Um, you know, of course I grew up around ice cream, but I didn't work in ice cream after college and you know, growing up I I wasn't as involved as they were, as they were growing up in the business. So I'm just coming back and trying to learn from the ground up what we do and how we do it. You know, there are a wealth of information, so very thankful to have them around and be able to speak to things that happened 60 years ago, but also five years ago. So it's very, very helpful in that regard.
Speaker 4:Even in this morning's discussions about certain aspects of ice cream, I think you may have heard a few things that were new.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's always something I'm learning.
Speaker 3:But that's the best part. You mentioned like you didn't jump into the family business right away. You were in. You lived in New York, right Chicago. So what brought you back to the QC or what made you want to, you know, join in with your family?
Speaker 1:You know, I think being able to be part of a family business is such a unique and special, special opportunity that, you know, not everybody is blessed to have. And so I think, as I got into the working world and you know you realize what you like, what you don't like, you know, it just kind of started to, you know, dawn on me that, you know, working with family would be such an amazing opportunity to have. And you know, john and Jeff have done such a wonderful job building such a brand that's, you know, iconic in the Quad Cities but also, just, you know, really based on great company values and it's a family atmosphere. And so you start to realize all those things are really special. And so it wasn't an overnight decision by any means, but it just kind of slowly, you know, kind of planted the seed of, slowly, you know, kind of planted the seed, and then you know, eight years later, here we are.
Speaker 3:And so what do the both of you guys love so much about the QC? Obviously, you came back and you know Whitey's has been in the Quad Cities since the beginning. What is it about this community that is just so perfect for this place?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, we've always said, you know, we wouldn't be where we are today without the Quad City community. No, no doubt about it. So we've always been so fortunate that the Quad Cities have so much to offer, without you know, having lived in rather large cities, it's life's a little little easier here in a lot of ways, but also it's there's such a sense of community here that I don't think you get elsewhere.
Speaker 3:There really is. I feel like, no matter what, we're connected and and Quad Cities goes hard. No, like I mean people love John Deere classic, the Bix Whitey's like I just posted on our social media a couple days ago about like the Quad City staples and everyone was commenting Whitey's ice cream like that's my favorite. And um earlier, anika, when we had like our conversation, and people have their go-to flavors that they get every single time and they hardly switch it up. I mean I know yours is what a chocolate shake you said.
Speaker 1:I do love a chocolate ball. It's a classic. But yeah, as far as flavors go, I I move around a little bit, but pretty much based on season. So we're in banana gram season, so I'm all in on banana gram but, you know, we we have no evidence to support this, but we think that probably 80% of people who come into our stores never look at the menus. They just know exactly what they want and they've got their thing and that's what they're going to get.
Speaker 1:So we have, over the past few years, started doing tree to the months, which I think has broadened people's horizons a little bit, and, you know, trying to do some different fun promotions and whatnot. So we have a lot of customers who come in the first of the month and say give me the treat of the month, no matter what it is, they just want to try it. So I think it's really been fun to open up people's options. But a lot of times they just go back to their old classics, Cause if you want some comfort food, you want, you want your, your, your usual.
Speaker 3:Jon, do you have a favorite? Can you even pick? Is that like picking your favorite child?
Speaker 4:My pick Is that like picking your favorite child. My kids are tired of hearing this story. But I say I don't limit myself to a favorite. But if I'm in the store with a spoon in my hand, mississippi Mud Rebel could be in trouble. But I move around too. I make stuff that's never going to be on the menu and things like that. But I agree with Annika when she said you know, most people just come in and order the same thing. Last year when we had our 90th anniversary celebration and we were selling cones for 90 cents a dip, I had a number of people say you know, they were so cheap. It gave me an opportunity to try something else In case I didn't like it. I wasn't losing. So much.
Speaker 1:That's so true. Which, um, my dad mentioned, um, that's a fun flavor with a lot of quad city history involved in it. So, um, I wasn't around, but they created the flavor in 1993 when we had the great flood, um, in the Mississippi, and so all proceeds at that time went to the American red cross for flood relief efforts. And so, I think at that time, where you guys donated $5,000, which you know back then a little bit different in 93. And then in 2019, when we had the flood again, we Mississippi muds stayed a constant, like it's a popular flavor. It's never gone anywhere, but for, I think, about a month we did all proceeds, all proceeds again, we're going to flood relief efforts and we're able to raise 47,000 that time.
Speaker 4:So it just shows how much the Quad Cities cares about their community and is willing to rally behind something as a matter of fact, the first time we did that we actually had more than one person, but I remember a little old lady came into the store and said I don't want the ice, but can you make sure this dollar gets to the Red Cross? And that's what makes the Quad Cities a great place to live too. It's a giving community and a caring community, and we love it.
Speaker 3:It's pretty incredible and you guys love our community and you love giving back. I mean, you've got the John Deere Classic ice cream John Deere ice cream, which is pretty I just saw your post on social media about that and then also with the Bix, you guys, um, have all those popsicles for the runners, Um, has that always been something you've wanted to do, Like give back to our community, be a part of our community, or is it just opportunities arise?
Speaker 1:You know, I think, what was that? My grandma always said um, if you don't take care of the community, they're not going to take care of you.
Speaker 4:So, and that's always been a staple for us, yeah, I mean we, we make our living here and we feel like we need to give back with something we always learn from our parents.
Speaker 2:And as to the Bix.
Speaker 4:I don't know how long we've been involved, but the first year I set it up it was just us Pepsi and oranges. That was it, yeah, so.
Speaker 1:I mean, we've been involved with the Bix for a long, long time. I can't even fathom how many popsicles we've given away over the years they're making popsicles as we speak to start prepping to give away at the Bix.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I was going to say you've got to get ready, because it's the 50th anniversary. It's going to be a big party.
Speaker 1:I think we probably give away more popsicles than we sell on a yearly basis, but for parades or whatever the case may be. But yeah, and then I know you mentioned the John Deere Classic as well. We don't know exactly how long we've been involved, but I think we were one or two years off from the beginning. I think we when, when they were celebrating their 50th anniversary, we went back and tried to, you know, figure out how long we've been around there too and we.
Speaker 4:We weren't involved when it was at crow valley, but when it went to oakwood we started, we started so yeah, it's been a long long time I'm gonna need to try that flavor.
Speaker 3:what, what exactly is it? Not just John Deere?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it doesn't taste like tractors. No, it's lemon custard mixed with lime sherbet, so it's a very refreshing flavor. It's grown in popularity every single year. It's just people keep asking when it's coming back.
Speaker 4:It tastes like a frozen Sprite.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I love Sprite, that's perfect.
Speaker 4:Well, Annika will let you in on next month's Treat of the Month secret.
Speaker 1:What, yeah, like is this okay? Well, when are we airing this?
Speaker 4:I guess, Sorry if I have to edit. Put it out Our Treat of the Month is going to be a John Deere Classic float, in in other words a Sprite float with a dip of John Deere classic in it yeah, double right, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it'll be great. And then we're going to be donating um a little bit off of the sales of those to the birdies fun that's incredible.
Speaker 3:Again, here you guys go giving back to the community. It's amazing, it's it's incredible, what goes kind of how did you guys create the John Deere ice cream? What was the conversations like? What were the ideas like, what were the flavors that you guys threw out that didn't work, or how?
Speaker 1:did. How did it come?
Speaker 3:to be.
Speaker 1:You know we talked about it for their 50th anniversary, of course, and it I'd love to say there was like a huge research process. But you know we knew we kind of wanted it to be yellow and green. You know pretty classic colors for john deere and so obviously the the good answers on that are lemon and lime. Um, so we worked with the john deere classic team and, um, they came up and were able to be up here when we were making the first batch of it and it was really, really fun I think I would.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry, and it was kind that John Deere, let us call it that john deer the company deer and company, because you know they need to protect stuff. But they tasted it and agreed that they liked it too. We did have to make some adjustments. I mean, it's not just throw lemon, custard and lime together, because the textures are different. We had to do some experimenting and adjusting and it's all worked out well yeah, I think everyone always asks.
Speaker 1:You know, they think we have this crazy lab up here where we create new flavors and do all these experimenting.
Speaker 4:But there's the lab yeah, it's, it's not.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, we kind of we always say that, or they always say they make it how they like to eat it. So, um, you know, we kind of we always say that, or they always say they make it how they like to eat it. So, um, you know, we find the ways that are going to work for for us, um, things that we're able to do, but a lot of times we get ideas from employees. You know, finding what other companies are traveling our travels work for um, and then we kind of experiment.
Speaker 1:But there's no major process or program for new flavors or experimenting. It's just kind of a what? But there's no major process or program for new flavors or experimenting. It's just kind of a what we feel will work best.
Speaker 3:So have you ever created a flavor and it just was not a hit in the stores? Yes, many one. I just can't imagine any like ice cream not tasting great with a lot of different things.
Speaker 1:You know a couple that come to mind over the last year. Well, the one big one that was more of a flop was Chipotle chocolate, so it was like spicy chocolate.
Speaker 3:Oh, I was like what?
Speaker 1:It was fun, it was novel, but it didn't go over super well you know, there's always some people who love it, but you never know.
Speaker 4:I mean, one year years ago, long before Annika came back, we decided to have 10 new flavors and that's a lot, because you've got to take flavors out of the store too and we ended up with nine, and I was trying to come up with something for the 10th and we threw something together I don't even remember what it was and that became the most popular of the 10 flavors it's not scientific, based on the Quad City taste buds.
Speaker 3:I mean, I know a lot of people love the lemon bar, lemon bar shake. And it's going to be like it wasn't a main item on the menu or whatnot, and then all of a sudden, it's around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we find that a lot with tree to the months. Like you know, we can kind of guess what might be more popular than others, but then out of the blue one will just surprise us. One last year that we were like, oh, this is not going to be our biggest one was pineapple upside down cake shakes and it was our biggest tree of the month last year. You just never know you really don't.
Speaker 3:And it's funny because we put like I mean, I go to Whitey's quite a bit I grew up in the Quad Cities and we have like a question of the day and we wrote like what's your go-to Whitey's order? And the amount of different orders that our whole staff. It was crazy and I was just like because, again, like I go with my go-to a moose track shake, sometimes a strawberry banana shake, but just the you can't argue with either one of those amazing.
Speaker 3:It's just like the unique differences, or when people go and like my favorites, or when they go to the store and they like add in all these crazy flavors, and somehow it works, and then that's their order.
Speaker 1:Since they were little, I'm like I don't know how you got to that point but congratulations now your staff is truly amazing, like the things that people come in and they'll be like a push of that, a scoop of this, like half it's just you know they they are very um go with the flow on what people request and they're really wonderful at being able to to make it work sometimes they add so much stuff there's no room for ice cream it's just toppings and you guys have, which isn't bad either, because who wouldn't love a, you know, like a whole cup of oreos or snickers, or with some whipped cream on top right, or even your slushies are incredible.
Speaker 3:I love your cherry slush with vanilla ice cream.
Speaker 1:Oh, and I wish you know we back to how we we don't always make things easy on ourselves. We, um, we make all of our slush ourselves. You know it's not like a store-bought situation and as far as our toppings go, we um have a woman who works for us that all day long she just makes the toppings. You know you can buy them, but we like how we do them better. So you know we have we go through a lot of great, great lengths to make sure that people are receiving the best product we can put out there, which is amazing.
Speaker 3:I mean it matches with your values and and every time we walk into a Whitey store, I mean we have just the best experience, and I know you guys probably train your employees to be to be bright smiles when people walk in. I mean I probably know the answer to this, but are you guys do? Are you guys trained behind the counter like would you hop in and help out if it's, if it's busy?
Speaker 1:yeah well I was there two weekends ago. Yeah, you know, um, we, we definitely do. It's um, it's all hands on deck some weekends. So, uh, we, we definitely. And it it's fun to be able to work in the stores and to interact with customers, see what people are ordering, how they're ordering it, you know, get to know employees a little bit better, and so, and I get- a lot of grief when I'm behind the counter.
Speaker 4:You know what's the old man still working for and all that stuff. But we, we still do it all.
Speaker 3:You guys really do it, Annika. You wear a lot of hats I mean not to like spill the secret but you're the hand behind the social media. If anyone was wondering, like she, when you look at whitey social media, she's the one that's holding all, all of the shakes and the cups and the cones and the red nails she wants, yeah she wants us to pay for her nail polish.
Speaker 1:Now it's a business expense I have to agree with her, I think I I'm pretty sure leah said that that should be a company, a company payment. Now it, um, it's something that I just personally have red nails a lot and you know I was the one taking pictures and there they were and it's turned into something I was not expecting.
Speaker 4:We'll put it that way it offsets all the black she wears every other day. But it's funny how people comment on those red nails.
Speaker 3:It's like it's a staple, it's like part of your brand now.
Speaker 4:It's like the red nails are that's what I'm expecting. Good thing, our colors are red and white.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'd be a little bit different if we were.
Speaker 4:Green and white. Yeah, our colors were originally green and white.
Speaker 3:What was why change? I mean, I love green, it was before I was born.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have pictures of it being green and white. To be honest, we don't know when it changed exactly and nobody really knows the reason. It's just going to be one of those things that goes down in Whitey's folklore, no rhyme or reason. But we used to be. It was kind of a darker green and white.
Speaker 3:So yeah, the trivia question. You know Whitey's first colors, but I think it's. I think it's cool that you have your hand Well, not just your hand. Like your marketing, you do the social media and as someone who's also in social media, I know you probably talked to a lot of students in classes. And what advice do you have for helping out such a strong brand or running a social media that has such a big following?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I think we probably go against the norm a little bit. I know, when I was in social media classes back in the day, they, you know, used to always be like respond to every comment. You know, do this, do that. And you know we're kind of I think we're unique in a way of how we still operate our stores and kind of you know a little bit more of a traditional sense, like a little old fashioned, as people call it, and so from a social media perspective, we kind of I do the same. You know we don't. We don't respond to every comment, we don't do certain things. You know we're not running deals all the time or whatnot, but it's really been fun to see how much people care and love the brand and on social media, you know, and it's just the littlest things, you know we don't post a ton, but when we do, you know it's always, it's always so endearing to see all the people saying I miss.
Speaker 1:Whitey's come to Japan, come to you know wherever. That was just one that popped up yesterday, so it's top of mind, phoenix, phoenix or whatever the case is, and you know so, our social media has been fun. When I came back we just didn't need it necessarily, and so it's been really a fun project to develop it. I think they posted maybe twice a year before I came back.
Speaker 4:Our controller used to post a couple of items.
Speaker 1:It was like pumpkins back and closed on Christmas, and so it's really been fun to create this whole Following yeah yeah, it really is, and it's an easy way to talk to your fans.
Speaker 3:I mean I went to Iowa State and I would have, like my parents or like friends, parents, grab our whitey shakes, put it in dry ice and then bring them up to Iowa State and we would have them. And it was like the best weekend ever because we just craved it so much. Like Whitey's is a staple. I got I played softball, I would say as well and we got our whole softball team Whitey's um ice cream from like Hy-Vee and we were like after practice we were like we have to try this, like all the QC girls were like you have to try this, you have to try this. So we got, I think, classic, just vanilla and then moose tracks, chocolate chip cookie dough and then it might've been like Mississippi mud maybe. And oh my gosh, the girls and the coaches were obsessed and thank you for spreading it.
Speaker 1:I went to Iowa state too, so that is near and dear to me.
Speaker 4:We know that road.
Speaker 1:It is fun, you know, especially seeing on social media. We always talk about it with we FedEx ice cream across the country. So it's a service that we are able to offer. It's not a cheap service, I'll be the first to admit it. But you know we're shipping a hazardous material with dry ice, so it gets a little bit spendy. But you know, love seeing people post on social media, like them opening their box of whiteys that arrived in Florida or whatever the case is, and it's it's. You know we we'd love to bring that joy to people. So it's pretty awesome. So, yeah, we, we we package a lot of coolers, especially around holiday weekends and whatnot. The, our two stores that do dry ice, our 41st street store in Moline and our 53rd Street store in Davenport. They just, they're ready for it. They got, they're ready to pack a lot of coolers traveling to wherever, wherever they're going.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can't. I mean like I can imagine how many places and people want Whitey's in their area. Would you ever expand outside the Quad Cities, the Midwest or is this your? Is this your home? Is this where you're staying? You ask?
Speaker 1:a good question. This is our home.
Speaker 4:This is where we're staying. We're not opposed to expansion, but you have to have the right amount of help and the good help, and because we, you know there's the whitey way and how we do things here and we don't want to change that. We really don't. Our folks used to say you take care of your reputation and the rest will take care of itself. So, um, that's what we've tried to do all these years is maintain our reputation and not do anything to mess it up. Even if you hire some young punk that runs social media, you know we have to put a lid on her occasionally. No, she's done a great job with it and, um, that's just bolstered another form of reputation building.
Speaker 1:Really whether it be for ice cream or red fingernails, I don't know well. And I think you know um, we get asked about the expansion aspect a lot and um, right now we're we're happy with what you know we're maintaining and happy with where we're at. But I think that you know it's always said to the Quad Cities takes a lot of ownership over Whitey's and we have people tell us all the time that oh, we hope you guys don't expand out of the Quad Cities because then it's not ours. You know, I think there's a lot of pride in it and so that goes along with.
Speaker 4:You know people always ordering the same thing, or our reputation. We say the Quad Cities is taking ownership in our stores because if they ever come and tell us a story like you may, you'd say my store is the one in Bettendorf. And so they've always referred to it as my store. Well, it means because they always go to the same store, but also underlying gives us that warmth and uh fuzzy feeling that you know they take ownership in whitey's
Speaker 3:yeah, I, I mean, I definitely do. I say my store and it's the one in bettendorf and which is hilarious. You killed that and so and again, like one of my favorite things is when I have my friends visit from college or from out of town, it's like that's one of the first things we do is we take them to Whitey's because that's like you know, qc is known for this awesome ice cream and such a great brand and you're going to have such a great experience when you go in. And so selfishly, I'm kind of like, keep it the Midwest and in the QC, but at the same time it's like I want everyone to be able to experience Whitey's, because and that's true because sometimes we feel we don't even have any Quad City customers unless they've got company in town.
Speaker 4:You know, these are my friends from Kentucky. We had to come here, but we do here so often, you know.
Speaker 1:I got off the plane and I went to Whitey's before I went home.
Speaker 4:It's like well, thank you, but see your family. You know, this time of the year it fits because years ago we had a guy come in the store a kid. He said I'm just coming home from college, so if I'm back here tonight with my parents, don't tell him. I was in here already. So he stopped by for a cone or a shake before he went home you have, you have priorities right, yeah well, that was always when I was in college.
Speaker 3:It was like the first thing when I came home we got to go to whitey's and I didn't care if we went every day for the next week, like that was just on our. It was important. And again, it's one of my favorite things when people are like you're from, you're from the Quad Cities, oh, whitey's. We literally just had um, a group here from Illinois and we were like, oh, are you leaving? Are you leaving town this afternoon? They're like, yeah, but we're gonna make a quick, quick stop at Whitey's and I'm making my husband drive because so then I can eat my shake on the way home. It's the way to go it's literally perfect you used to always get cones.
Speaker 1:when we were driving and he said well, you can't eat a shake while you're driving, you can get a cone down.
Speaker 4:I just did last week.
Speaker 3:You drove with a shake on the way home, or you drove with a cone.
Speaker 4:A shake. Oh, that's good, we were driving on the highway out west always, and we brought some shakes that were frozen for after lunch.
Speaker 1:you know, it's literally perfect.
Speaker 4:But it is when you're driving. A cone is easier.
Speaker 3:Are you guys a waffle cone, cake cone?
Speaker 1:Oh, I got sugar. A waffle cone is a lot.
Speaker 4:It is, I'm a cake cone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know it's funny. I think that everyone's always like well, don't you guys just eat it all the time and it's like, you know, more often than not there's ice cream up in our office in the freezer that we need to test or try.
Speaker 4:Had some this morning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Sherberts were on the list this morning, so you know there's always ice cream around. So then sometimes you're like, oh, I don't need to get my banana gram, but then it's impossible not to.
Speaker 3:I was going to say what a fun gig eating ice cream breakfast, lunch and dinner, trying new flavors.
Speaker 4:It's good for you we do always have a long list of volunteers to be taste testers yeah, sign, sign me up.
Speaker 3:If you guys ever have a new flavor, I'll just I'll give it to you straight.
Speaker 4:It's probably always going to be good to me we'll let you know if we're ever going to change how we make moose tracks oh, please, I just, I love it so much, never change I know moose tracks is one of those funny ones.
Speaker 1:It's, you know, it's obviously a big seller but it's, you know, a people pleaser through and through. But you know there's always other crazy things that people are talking about, you know, whether it be a well. One of them right now is our peanut butter Oreo fudge, which won the retro flavor madness is just we can't keep it in stock. But then you have your classics that we know are always. You know your mint chocolate chip, your Graham central station moose tracks. That are just classics, that we're not gonna. We're not gonna mess with those.
Speaker 3:And now I'm like, all right, I'm trying to figure out my schedule at the end of the day, like, can I go grab whiteys on my way home from work at my ice?
Speaker 1:cream too much. You're talking about ice cream too much.
Speaker 3:I need to eat some. You know, it's funny, Annika, when, when we had our meeting together with the rest of the brand crew a month or so ago, um, I get a text that night and it was Katrina and Lindsey and they both went to the Whiteys that night and they both got the lemon bar shake after we were talking.
Speaker 3:Did they and did they like it? Oh, katrina was like this is the best thing I've ever had Bunch of emojis. She was so excited and it was just. It was funny, because it's like you talk about whiteys and it's now I'm going to have to go. Now you have to go and honestly I might just have to sign up for the Bix just so I can get some popsicles at the end as well.
Speaker 4:We can make an arrangement for you, yeah well, our popsicles are.
Speaker 1:you know we, they're in our stores. We have four different flavors. We have a root beer, blue raspberry, our cherry and orange, and you know not that we're biased or anything, but our popsicles are probably the best popsicles out there.
Speaker 4:There are plenty of flavor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I was going to say they're so good I can taste it on my mouth right now because of how many times I've eaten them. I think when I was growing up, we had them in in middle school and parents would bring them in for treats, and it was.
Speaker 4:I need to fire Annika and hire you as our social media never I don't have red nails that feelings you're coming out with just popsicles. No.
Speaker 3:Annika does a great job again. Like we love the social media, it's so funny. And when, seriously when we found out that you were behind all the pictures, pictures and the and the March madness of the favorite flavor, and amazing, as a social media person, I'm like, oh, what can I learn from her today? Oh, my gosh, you're so sweet.
Speaker 4:She is pretty good.
Speaker 1:We have fun with it and it's a. It's a big joke up here with our general manager, because you know, when I post something I have to make sure everyone's okay with it, because as soon as it's posted, it's it's something's gonna happen, so they have to have enough on hand. Yeah, so it's actually I learned my lesson the hard way with that, so there's a lot of trial and error. I'd be like, oh, it sounds like a fun day to post moose tracks.
Speaker 3:And then I was like, oh, we gotta make it, that's funny because you don't even think about that, whereas, like, like, if you posted something you know people are going to see it. They're probably going to come into the store if they like, want that flavor.
Speaker 4:And if you don't have it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it definitely. I've made a few mistakes in that route.
Speaker 4:We've actually ordered more Sprite base, so we have enough Sprite on hand for next month's Treat of the Month, smart.
Speaker 1:You have to think those things out sometimes. Treat of the month especially got more challenging during COVID when there was a lot of supply chain issues because we really had to get creative with what we were actually able to get in in a short amount of time. You know we couldn't just do an Oreo shake because Oreos were. There was a backlog on Oreos for a long time. So you know, it was just kind of maintaining what we could at best and then just figuring out what we could do for a treat of the month from there. So it's a little bit easier now that things have normalized in the supply chain world. But we still have to think it through before anything gets posted, that's for sure.
Speaker 3:So do you guys have one last question Do you have a favorite like treat of the month that you have posted, or like put out there and it's just like your go-to flavor? Now I know you have your chocolate mall and your mississippi mud, but what about a flavor of the month?
Speaker 1:no, I can't say now I have to like look back at the list of what we've done. Now there's been so many um, you know, there's some that are just basics, that we well, we did um did what's your favorite Chocolate banana butterfinger shake, yum.
Speaker 2:Try it.
Speaker 4:That sounds so good, chocolate banana shake is very refreshing, and if you either put Reese's peanut butter cup or butterfinger in with it it works.
Speaker 1:Yum, we did that as a true to the month, I think this year Again, my brain loses track of when we did that as a true to the month. I think this year again, my no last fall, my brain loses track of when we did what, but you know if you get certain flavors like coconut or banana um.
Speaker 4:Some people say, no, I had no interest in it, you know so certain things like that can be risky. Not any big risk, but um there are people that really have the anti-taste on certain things.
Speaker 1:You know, one funny one that I always think about is we did a Rocky Road shake last year and we're like, oh, this one's going to go big. People always ask us to do a Rocky Road flavor and I don't know if it's the nut aspect or the marshmallow aspect, but it just fell flat Like it's one of those. You just you never know. I tried it and it went fast.
Speaker 3:Right right, it's one of those. You just you never know. I tried it fast, right right? Um, you guys had a flavor of the month, I think, but now I feel like I get it all the time. It was the um almond joyish one with, like the oh yeah, coconut joy, oh yeah that one is so good that's a great flavor.
Speaker 4:Well, he had the funny story about that one, the naming of that well, we called it almond joy, but we put an e on the end of the almond and we got a call from the candy manufacturer saying you can't do that. Years ago that wouldn't matter, but you know we're small. But now our flavors are on the web, so now we get the calls. So we just changed it to coconut joy and sales doubled because almond scares people really.
Speaker 3:No chocolate covered almonds in it and coconut now and it goes yeah hey, that's a flavor that is such a good flavor and I love that story because, like I can see some people like I I wouldn't say almond joy is like everyone's favorite candy bar but, you take that name out of the the shake name and suddenly it's a whole different flavor I know each.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's at this point. Each flavor has a funny little story about it somewhere along the line so, yeah, they, there's always, um, you know, a funny little little something with each one, especially the flavors that have been around for a long time.
Speaker 3:There's so much history in in whiteys and it's just fun to kind of like uncover the. I guess like peel back the onion and find out everything.
Speaker 4:I wish we would have taken notes on a daily basis. We could have written a book.
Speaker 3:Hey, you still could because, like, even just this, these 40 minutes, you guys have told me so many incredible stories I would have never even realized, or I literally can't wait to tell the staff. Like, did you know the first color of whiteys was actually green?
Speaker 1:No, you guys didn't. That is like a fun trivia question.
Speaker 4:Nobody's around to say that I'm a liar anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You could come up with a lot. You wish we had the answers to that. Unfortunately, no one's left to ask, but we'll just come up with fun stories to tell along the way.
Speaker 3:Keep the legacy going and just Whitey's is such a QC staple and we thank seriously Visit Quad Cities and our community thanks you guys for being just incredible, such a staple. We love the white, we love whiteys, we love you guys.
Speaker 4:It's been so fun um we thank you guys for promoting the Quad Cities well, of course, of course we'll do that.
Speaker 3:And it's again it's always easy to promote ice creams but everybody loves it yeah, it's so true. Um, we always finish our podcast with the qc that's where statement. So I gave you guys some time to think um, so finish this sentence, qc, that's where you get great ice cream.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's terrible.
Speaker 1:Do you have a better option?
Speaker 3:Home. That's where it's home. I love it. It was perfect. You guys are rock stars. Seriously, thank you Taking time out of your super, super busy schedule um to chat with me. Tell me some really fun stories. I really appreciate it. Um, you guys rock.
Speaker 1:Having us. Yeah, thank you, you guys rock.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much Thanks for listening to QC. That's where a podcast powered by visit quad cities text visit QC to three, eight, three, one, four for insider events, activities and updates sent straight to your phone. That's V, I, s, I T, qc. One word to three, eight, three, one, four. Message and data rates may apply.