March 14, 2017

Meet Debra Eastern of Westside Creamery

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Debra Eastern.

Debra, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Throughout my childhood my mom made homemade popcorn balls every year for my birthday to take to school. They were the BEST! I also grew up on homemade baked goods thus; I readily took interests in baking. I learned to bake cookies from scratch at the young age of 9. As an adult the innate desire to bake never dissipated. I was inspired to own a bakery; one that also specialized in gourmet popcorn.

During the onset of 2000 while living in Charlotte, NC, I wrote a business plan for a brick & mortar gourmet popcorn shop “Queens’ Kernel Gourmet Popcorn.” I named the business after the Queen City – Charlotte. Just as I was about to launch however, unexpected happenstance relocated my family to Atlanta, GA. The wide spectrum of Atlanta’s market was overwhelming compared to Charlotte’s market analysis, so my enthusiasm waned.

In the fall of 2012 a nephew inquired about my plans for Queens’ Kernel. He advised me to consider a food truck rather than, a brick & mortar for Atlanta’s market. I was befuddled by this notion so he took me on a field trip to several food truck parks. He also introduced me to the concept of a commissary – commercially shared-kitchen. This increased my interests to do further research. I learned about the Atlanta Street Food Coalition (ASFC).

After attending ASFC’s workshop in November 2012, I began receiving their newsletters. The December newsletter advertised food trucks for sale as well as, a turn-key ice-cream truck business. Though not seriously interested in an ice-cream truck or any truck for that matter, I called the ice-cream business owner. The owner didn’t return my call until the following month in January 2013. As soon as he told me his name was Greg Smith, it was familiar to me. He informed me that he was the facilitator of the workshop and in fact, the founder of ASFC. Westside Creamery was his own personal ice cream business for sale.

After informing him of my desire to bake and make gourmet popcorn, he responded – “Why not do them both, ice-cream and popcorn is America’s favorite fun foods.” My response was, “You are ASFC’s founder who is selling your truck & business and no-one has jumped at the opportunity to buy it?” He said, “Yes, I received many inquiries, but due to the Christmas season, I’m just getting around to calling everyone back and you were the 1st on the list.” My husband, Llew and I made arrangements to meet Greg that same week. Ironically, Llew and I also attended an entrepreneur workshop at our church the Thursday evening before our meeting with Greg. The workshop was so intriguing, we left motivated and knew without a doubt business ownership was in our destiny.

We meet with Greg on Friday, January 17th which also happened to be my birthday. After summarizing the potential to up-fit the truck to accommodate our ideas, along with Llew kicking the tires and us taking the truck for a test ride, we sealed the deal right on the spot. Thus, Queens’ Kernel LLC, dba Westside Creamery was launched.

We took Westside Creamery to a whole new level from what Greg and his wife Maggie had done. We rented a commercial kitchen and I got busy developing different flavors of popcorn combinations. In addition, I introduced my infamous homemade pound cake which I baked fresh and served warm a la carte with your choice of ice cream or sorbet. We also offer root beer, cream soda and coke floats, and made-2-order ice cream sandwiches prepared on the spot with your choice of homemade cookies and ice cream filling.

At the time Westside was initially acquired, I was a full-time doctoral student. My husband, a retired public school principal, currently serves as part-time adult education instructor at Atlanta Technical College. Along with his help in the evenings and on weekends, I worked the business full-time in-between coursework and research. After completing my doctorate degree, I desired to go back to my HR profession, so we no longer offer gourmet popcorn, as it was the most time-consuming product to prepare for the business.

While now only working the truck on the weekends, we still serve Atlanta’s best hand-dipped epicurean ice cream and sorbet along with, our homemade baked goods. We can be found on any given Saturday at a festival, movie/TV production studio, community ice cream social, or someone’s wedding reception. Our dedicated customers frequently seek us out. If they pout long and hard enough, we have been known to personally hand deliver a helping of Banana Pudding ice cream to them – a favored amongst many.

We’re no longer serving popcorn, but we’re still On & Popping! Check out our website…you CALL – we HAUL!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Considering that we were new business owners, we had not met much opposition or negative set-backs. Having financed the business with our own money, we do not have any business debt. While we are seasonal (March-November), we have always made a profit, be it small or large.

The only obstacle I can identify would be…

Event sponsors who over-zealously estimate the number of anticipated attendees resulting in less forecasted profit.
Event planners who invite too many food truck vendors to accommodate the number of event attendees.
Event planners who try to take advantage of the increase of street food vending in Atlanta and thereby charge absorbent vending fees making it impossible for business owners to turn a profit.

We were burned by the latter – number 3 during our first year but quickly learned how to weed out those type of events that render us just at, or below the “break-even margin.”

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Westside Creamery – what should we know?
Westside Creamery is a hand-dipped, epicurean ice cream and sorbet dessert food truck. Our ice cream and sorbet is produced locally right here in the Atlanta area by a family-owned dairy. Whenever possible, the dairy uses products grown by Georgia farmers. They customers are small business owners like ourselves and high-end hotel chains like the Ritz-Carlton.

We have upwards of 60 different flavors of ice-cream and over 20 sorbets to choose from. However, during our 4 years in business, we have come to know what our customers like so we carry approximately 8-10 ice cream and 4 sorbet flavors on any given day. We serve at most 5 ice cream and 3 sorbet on the truck per event, rotating flavors according to venue and season.

In addition to ice cream/sorbet, I bake fresh for every event homemade pound cake and 2-4 different homemade cookies. Cookies are only served as ice cream sandwich. We offer coke, root beer & cream soda floats (w/vanilla bean ice cream). For weddings, private parties, etc., we’ll set-up a self-serve ice sundae bar complete with all the toppings: seasoned fruit, nuts, syrups, whipped cream & cherry. Customers come to the truck to choose their ice cream and top it themselves. Along with toppings, we dress the table with linen and fresh flowers. Sundae bar is only available for 100 or more guests with a minimum of 2-hour stay.

We are most proud of our customer service which always result in excellent ratings and repeat clientele. People always comment on how clean and well-organized our truck is and how professional and timely we perform.

Our motto is, “We are Servant-Leaders who render Kingdom Quality products & service.”

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
I would like to first thank God for remaining us that “He did not give us a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind.” 2Tim 1. Due to this obedience, the front of our truck reads…”Faith over Fear.”

We also had an excellent attorney who reviewed our purchase contract and went over it with a fine-toothed comb ensuring that all “Ts” were crossed and “Is” dotted. Everything she requested in our contract was awarded us by Greg, the previous owner of Westside Creamery. Greg, in turn provided us with 6 months of consultation and answered our hundreds of questions and calmed our anxieties anytime we called. Providing consulting to us was a request made by our attorney which Greg obliged without reservation.

My nephew Mikal Muslim who kicked started my enthusiasm and placed the wind beneath my wings to “take my business endeavor in a different direction.” Without his minor questioning on the Sunday afternoon, we would have probably never launched Queens’ Kernel dba Westside Creamery.

Tashiek Lescott, my confidant and friend in Charlotte who invested in the business in more ways than one.

Pricing: