Cold Stone Creamery
Cold Stone CreameryCold Stone Creamery is an American-based ice cream parlor chain. Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, the company is owned and operated by Kahala Brands. The company's main product is premium ice cream made with approximately 12–14% butterfat, made on location and customized for patrons at time of order. Cold Stone has also expanded its menu with other ice cream related products, including: ice cream cakes, pies, cookie sandwiches, smoothies, shakes and iced or blended coffee drinks.
Since 2008, the company has been co-branding its locations with other chains in an attempt to not only increase its presence outside of the United States, but transform its business model from seasonal to year-round.
The Company was co-founded in 1988 by Donald and Susan Sutherland, who sought ice cream that was neither hard-packed nor soft-serve. Publicity materials describe it as "smooth and creamy super-premium ice cream." Cold Stone Creamery opened its first store that year in Tempe, Arizona. The original Cold Stone Creamery, store #0001, is in operation today near the same intersection (southwest corner of McClintock & Southern) as the original Tempe location. The store moved from the original location to the current location in the early 1990s.
The Company has maintained the same original business model created by Steve Herrell who founded Steve's Ice Cream. Patrons first select what flavor of ice cream they would like and then choose from a plethora of mix-ins available to be folded into their ice cream. Mix-ins can include, but are not limited to: candies, nuts, brownies and/or syrups. Cold Stone's derives its name from the frozen granite slab that the team members use to fold your mix-ins into the ice cream. The concept is similar to the Marble Slab Creamery, the inventor of mixing ice cream on a frozen stone slab (founded in 1983), which was also inspired by Steve Herrell and was operating in the Phoenix metro area in the late 1980s.
In 1995, Cold Stone Creamery opened its first franchise store in Tucson, Arizona. Shortly after, a second location (first out of state) was opened in Camarillo, California. Cold Stone Creamery is now the sixth bestselling brand of ice cream in the US and operates stores in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand,Brazil Puerto Rico, Indonesia, Guam, China, Mexico, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kenya,Trinidad and Tobago, Qatar, Nigeria, Kuwait, The Philippines, Singapore, Turkey and Bangladesh. In 2008, Cold Stone opened its first European franchise in Copenhagen, Denmark. Three more stores were later opened in other parts of the country. In January 2006, the Company was named the 11th fastest-growing franchise by Entrepreneur magazine. In June 2009, the Company opened its first locations in Canada, Mississauga and Ontario. As of 2015 there is one location in Toronto and only Canadian location. As of 2012, three stores had opened in Singapore. In March 2015, Cold Stone opened its first location in Turkey's capital Ankara. In 2015 Cold Stone Creamery opened its first location in El Salvador in Multiplaza Mall. As of 2017, there are two stores in Dhaka in Bangladesh; at Gulshan and Dhanmondi.
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