Sacramento ice cream parlor expands operations from farm to cone
SACRAMENTO – A warm Friday night may be the perfect time to grab some ice cream, and one Sacramento parlor chain is expanding its operations from farm to cone.
Leatherby's Family Creamery has been serving up scoops and smiles for more than four decades.
"You know and ice cream is just one of those things that's just so fun and exciting. Who's in a bad mood when they're coming in and eating ice cream?" owner Alan Leartherby said.
While they're known for their creative flavors and out-of-control portions, what drives this family business is family.
"Formed with grandfather, father and oldest brother, the rest of the family all had stock from the very beginning," Leatherby said.
The very beginning started as a vague idea from the man known as "Daddy Dave."
"He said, 'I want to do something that will really make the world a better place,' and so where do you find a business that can employ your 10 kids and do something that makes the world better?" Dave Leatherby, Jr., said of his father.
The answer ended up being ice cream.
"We spent one year, sampling ice cream and it was a real difficult job to drive all over California and sample ice cream all over the state, but from each one we would take out what we thought was something special," Dave Jr. said.
The result was handcrafted recipes made with top-tier ingredients. Much of it is made and imagined right on site.
"We'll watch our employees and they'll take some of our ingredients and they'll bring ingredients in and they'll start mixing different things," Alan Leatherby said.
As the business has expanded to five locations with 500 employees, their mission remains the same as what Daddy Dave envisioned 43 years ago.
"He wanted to be a place that sold happiness, a gathering place, and everyone was welcome and when people would come in, he would say, 'We aren't selling ice cream. We're selling a slice of joy, a slice of happiness,' " Dave Jr. said.
Leatherby's is also streamlining its business. The family recently bought three farms along the Sacramento River where they could grow almonds and walnuts to be used in their ice cream and sundaes.
