06/06/2022
Come see us this Saturday June 11th at the Amaz’n Nutrition, in Three Rivers, Michigan. We will be there until 4pm!!
💥VENDOR SPOTLIGHT💥
In January of 2022, a dream of opening his own ice cream business, became a possibility. Founder and owner of Blue Flamingo, Josh Grace, had worked for Ben’s Soft Pretzels for just under 6 years, mainly working the mobile units at fairs, festivals, and other events. Josh learned the ins and outs of the mobile units while working for Ben himself, and it sparked a dream for Josh of opening his own business selling ice cream.
Later in life, after Josh graduated high school, he continued his education and after getting his associates degree, he started working towards an accounting degree and took a lot of business core classes. He learned a lot from one of his business professors and was even more motivated to start his own business. Josh had been keeping notes and doing a lot of research prior to starting his business, and he knew he wanted to sell ice cream, but wanted to add something in addition to the ice cream. He also came up with the idea of selling real fruit smoothies, and figured out how to get both ice cream and smoothies to work in his mobile unit.
Early January of 2022, Josh’s dream of opening his own mobile business, became a reality. He started purchasing his equipment, planning events, getting the ice cream from Hershey’s Creamery Co., and getting the smoothie mix from Island Oasis. In early February, Josh and his brother, Dave, built the cabinets for the business and put heavy duty castor wheels on them to make set up and tear down much easier for the mobile unit. Josh also started his first event about half way into February at the Shipshewana On The Road event, but however quickly learned his lesson that you need proper health department licenses or you will get sent home. Josh is grateful for his friends that agreed to be his employees, and he was very appreciative when they were understanding at a couple shows when something didn’t go as planned, and also how easy they adapted to the sudden changes that did occur.
Blue Flamingo got its name from Josh, who could come up with weird names that caught people’s attention. Josh picked Blue Flamingo because “It was something different, it was catchy, and people I told about it seemed to like it as well.” Blue Flamingo survived the 1st spring season of being at every Shipshewana On The Road that it could make it to, which happened to be 7 successful weekends. Josh has plans to eventually open a brick and mortar location, but does plan on it taking a couple years before he is ready for that. Blue Flamingo and Josh greatly appreciates the support along the way, and hopes for the continued support to keep moving forward.
