la Frontera In the News

Round Rock Leader

February 7, 2004

First Texas Ben & Jerry's to settle in La Frontera

by Marcial Guajardo, Leader Staff

Round Rock gets a little bit sweeter on an upcoming holiday, but it's not Valentine's Day.

Vermont-based ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc. has announced its first "scoop shop" in Texas will be located in Round Rock, in the La Frontera multi-use development. The ice cream store is expected to open on April 1 — April Fool's Day.

"Everybody kind of mentioned that La Frontera was going to be the newest and hippest place," said Ki Shin, co-franchisee of the Round Rock location. "We thought it would be a perfect fit for our new shop."

The Ben & Jerry's will be located at Vintage Plaza, one of two retail shopping centers at La Frontera. Located two doors down from the newly-opened Mexican restaurant Baja Fresh, the scoop shop will be in a 1,200-square-foot space fronting State Highway 45.

The second ice cream vendor in La Frontera, Ben & Jerry's will offer a variety of ice cream flavors, as well as low fat ice cream, frozen yogurt, sorbet and novelty products.

Their offerings can be found in supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, restaurants and franchised Ben & Jerry's scoop shops nationwide.

Founded in 1978 by childhood schoolmates Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Ben & Jerry's has become well-known for its unique flavors, such as "Cherry Garcia," named after Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia, and "Festivus," inspired by an episode of "Seinfeld."

There are more than 50 ice cream, sorbert and yogurt flavors available.

Shin said the company plans to expand into other major cities in Texas — Dallas, Houston and San Antonio — by the end of the year. An Austin location, either in the southern or central sector of the city, is expected to open this year, as well. It should be joined by a second in 2005, he added.

Despite different college backgrounds (Shin majored in engineering; Su in business), they teamed to open a "Bobioca," a tea house concept out of California, franchise on the UT campus and a coffee house in San Marcos. They've been in business together about a year and a half.

The pair began looking for a new franchise opportunity in Austin in July of last year.

They visited the Ben & Jerry's corporate headquarters in Vermont to get a feel for the business and did other research before settling on Ben & Jerry's.

"Ben & Jerry's has a great business model," said Shin. "Along with that, they have a great social mission."

Part of that social mission is the company PartnerShop Program. Ben & Jerry's donates independently-owned PartnerShops to non-profit groups, which own and operate the stores. The stores provide job training to youth and supply experienced employees to Ben & Jerry's.

Non-profit Life Works is currently scouting locations for an Austin-area PartnerShop. That will likely open later this year.

Waterstone Development Group of Austin is currently set to debut three other businesses at Vintage Plaza.

Fashion Cleaners is expected to open next month, while Quizno's had an opening scheduled for May 1. Both will be in approximately 1,000-square-feet facilities.

National audio franchise Tweeter will anchor Vintage Plaza in an 8,500-square-feet location.