For Amy Simmons, the founder of Texas-based frozen dessert chain Amy’s Ice Creams, scoops and cones are an experience more than just a product
. Simmons got her start in the ice-cream business when she was a premed student at Tufts University, working at the original Steve’s ice cream store in Somerville, Massachusetts, to help defray her college expenses. She was drawn to the role ice cream plays in people’s lives.
“You go when you do well on a test. You go when you do poorly on a test. You go with all your relatives,” she says, “when you’ve been to the dentist, when your kid’s been good, when you’re under tremendous stress.” After graduation in 1982, she joined the Steve’s corporate team. She opened Steve’s locations in New York and Florida, and when the company was sold in 1983, she decided she wanted to build her own ice cream chain. The city of Austin appealed to her because it reminded her of another university town filled with ice-cream-loving young peopleAnn Arbor, Michigan, where she’d grown up. In 1984, she opened the first of what are now 15 artisanal ice cream stores in Houston, San Antonio and Austin.
“We’re not trying to be everything to everybody,” Simmons says. “We’re really focused on growth and income: a hundred years, not a hundred stores.” The company strives to preserve its local brand while staying relevant to a changing market that demands greater variety and more health-conscious desserts, a feat Simmons refers to as “a really fun puzzle.
Amy’s hyper-local approach has been successful: The company, which President George W. Bush called “irreverent,” reported $9 million revenue in 2017. For Simmons, the brand’s success is inextricably bound up with its ties to Texans. Amy’s Ice Creams caters both funerals and weddings, she notes, and the shops are often the sites of first dates.
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