A Kentucky Derby party was Alissa Vieira's first sign that she really might be onto something.
The Oregon native and Clay High School graduate had spent most of her adult life working in fine dining in some capacity, but she started making homemade ice cream mostly for fun.
Ahead of Derby Day, she began tinkering with the idea of turning the signature mint julep cocktail into an ice cream.
The result surprised even her.
"It was the first ice cream I made at home where it was like, 'Oh my God — this is really good,'" she said.
In the same way that an ice cream recipe can marry unexpected flavors, the confluence of time, place, and circumstance led Mrs. Viera to turn her artisan ice cream into a business called Swanky Scoops, which sells at Original Sub Shop and Deli at 402 Broadway St.
During more than a decade in New York and five more years in Boston, Mrs. Vieira said she fell in love with the creativity involved in the food industry and always wanted to start her own business.
After she moved back to northwestern Ohio along with her husband in 2017, she reconnected with a chef with whom she had worked in New York. The chef and his wife were relocating to Ohio as well and were selling ice cream equipment from a bakery, including a large batch freezer.
"I told my husband, 'This is our chance,'" she said. "It was the opportunity that presented itself that gave me the push to really jump into it as a business."
She initially aimed to search for her own brick-and-mortar location, but the pandemic shut down the U.S. a month after she bought the equipment. So she called an electrician, had him hook up the freezer in her home garage, and spent much of the next year workshopping recipes with very willing taste-testers in her immediate family.
It was after going to meet other small business owners in Toledo that she found not only sound advice, but a collaborator in Maureen Brogan of Original Sub Shop.
"She had come to me to introduce herself and she mentioned that she was trying to get to know local business owners, and I thought that alone was really amazing," Ms. Brogan said. "The more I got to know her work ethic, how amazing she is, how much she loves food, and the way she puts flavors together, I was like, 'There's plenty of room. We can do this.'
Ice cream was a natural fit alongside Original Sub's menu, and Ms. Brogan said was happy to offer advice and a space to another small-business owner looking to try something new in Toledo.
"I love to be a resource," Ms. Brogan said. "There's a really great food culture coming up where everybody is supporting each other, and that's really exciting."
With a gentle nudge from Ms. Brogan, the venture officially launched with a soft opening in late April.
Ms. Brogan said customers have already asked if there are Swanky Scoops T-shirts for purchase, and Mrs. Vieira had to increase microbatch recipe volumes by a factor of eight in the short time the business has been active.
"I didn't really feel ready yet," Mrs. Vieira said of opening, "but Maureen was like, 'Alissa, you have ice cream in the freezer and it's delicious. Just sell it. Put it out there.' ... It was a really unexpectedly awesome response."
Mrs. Vieira said she moved back to Toledo for quality of life reasons, and so far, starting her own small business has offered just the type of support for which she was looking.
"It was in the back of my mind that, if I wanted to start a business, I would have so many more opportunities and more built-in support in a city like Toledo," she said. "Not just that I have family and friends here, but I feel like the city has a collaborative attitude and spirit, and the other small business owners I've talked to have all been super encouraging, helpful, and offered tons of free advice.
"I think everything I've done in my career, one step has led to another and it's led me back to where I'm supposed to be."
First Published July 1, 2021, 11:30 a.m.
