John and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary later this year, but our journey has not always been as Mr. & Mrs. Ice Cream. We started out in totally different careers and never dreamed that our path would take this turn.

 

We are both graduates of the University of Tennessee--John with a B.S. from the College of Business and me (Sheila) with a B.S. from the College of Communications. John went into sales and I have worked in publishing for the past 20 years. We love to travel and love good food, dining out as well as cooking/grilling at home. Our first experience with Marble Slab Creamery was visiting the original location in Knoxville at Mercedes Place. Our family loved the whole experience--delicious ice cream, choosing our own combinations, watching the servers mix it all up, and then enjoying the cool treat. Little did we think we'd ever end up in the business!

 

So how did it happen? Apparently we have always been tempted by an entrepreneurial spirit. Over the years we've been involved in ownership of several very different businesses. First, we dabbled in a franchise for a professionally installed deck drain system (later sold to our associates) and John was a partner with a manufacturer's representative firm for several years. We even helped our kids startup an online kite and windsock business for a short while (they lost interest quickly). When John had an opportunity to sell his share of the rep firm a few years ago, we were looking for the next investment. John's experience was in product management and business-to-business sales, not in quick service restaurants, but as we researched business opportunities we kept coming back to ice cream.

 

On vacations we searched out ice cream parlors, and found that nothing really compared to the taste and quality of Marble Slab. So the journey began...and much faster than we ever anticipated. We purchased our first franchise agreement in 2005 and expected it to take a while to find the right location to build our store. Through a series of events on which I won't elaborate, we were fairly quickly committed to a location in The Fountain City Shops.

 

On April 12, 2006 we opened our store at 4885 North Broadway and were immediately overwhelmed by the excitement and response from the Fountain City community. Not only were we learning the ropes of this new business, we were busy with all the events related to our daughter's senior year of high school and graduation. We only thought our life had been busy trying to keep up with our kid's activities before adding ice cream to the mix!

 

John had planned on managing the store for the first year before bringing on an assistant. What we didn't realize was that keeping up with the community response would require 16-hour days and little time for seeking out a manager. I kid you not, John lived on a diet of Cheez-Its and beef jerky and kept a sleeping bag in the store office those first few months! Despite this we dove into the second store just a year later. Marble Slab Creamery at The Shops at Brookside (Exit 407 in Kodak by the Bass Pro Shop) opened in April 2007.

 

So that's how we got here. Mr. & Mrs. Ice Cream. The stores are established and our lives are much more manageable--thank goodness! We are blessed with good employees who help us keep the stores operating smoothly, and we are thankful for the faithful Marble Slab fans who keep coming back for our tasty creations. By the way, we still love ice cream. Actually, we've become ice cream snobs. We do our share of espionage by visiting other ice cream establishments, but none of them compares to the always fresh, always delicious ice cream that we serve. In case you didn't know, we make all the ice cream right in our stores (it's not shipped to us in cardboard boxes) from fresh dairy ingredients. We also bake our own waffle cones and brownies and make beautiful cakes (you can now place cake orders online).

 

Besides serving customers at our two local Marble Slab Creameries, we offer catering for corporate events, weddings, parties, and festivals. If you are an ice cream fan, we invite you to contact us and find out how we can help make your next event extra special.