When Katie Heldstab and Christa Puskarich got married, they received an ice cream maker as a gift. Little did they know at the time that this would be the start of their future business—Leona’s Ice Cream Sandwiches. The queer-owned, woman-owned business now has its first official scoop shop, located in Lawrenceville.
The company’s origins come from the ice cream maker and Heldstab’s lactose intolerance. She would complain to her wife about not being able to use the appliance because of this.
“Apparently, I griped about it enough for Christa to be like, ‘Either figure it out or get rid of it, but stop talking about it,’” Heldstab jokes. “So I figured it out.”
Once she discovered how to make lactose-free ice cream, she experimented with different flavors. After about a year of testing, she became more serious about it and began to draft a business plan.
Heldstab quit her job in food public relations and started at a culinary school in Pittsburgh, where she learned about food science.
“I was on the wrong side of the desk,” Heldstab says. “I should be on the food side.”
With her experience in food marketing, she saw a gap in the market for lactose-free dairy ice cream.
“Christa and I set out to make something in the vein of beautiful fruits and sauces and high-quality dairy, but make it lactose-free,” she shares.
The business began in the back of Zeke’s Coffee, which no longer exists. Leona’s was named after Heldstab and Puskarich’s first dog as a married couple.
“We would test at home, just learning recipes and figuring things out, and Leona was old, and she had a rough life, so I just gave her whatever she wanted,” Heldstab explains. “So she always knew the sound of the ice cream maker.”
When it came time to fill out the LLC paperwork, they decided to name the business after her.
Leona’s has many different unique flavors, such as lavender honeycomb, black sesame and tahini, plum, and more. Heldstab shares that they draw inspiration from all over and lots from reading.
“A lot of it is just curiosity, like, ‘Does this work? Can I make this into something?’” Heldstab says. “That, coupled with our staff, who always have really amazing ideas.”
While there are many winners, there are also some ideas that do not work. Sometimes there are unexpected favorites – lavender honeycomb being Heldstab’s choice. Although she does not usually enjoy lavender, the staff wanted to give it a try. After trying it out, it became a favorite.
“Another one that I loved, that is kind of obscure – we don’t make a lot of it, because people are kind of on the fence about it – we do a plum on ginger molasses,” she says. “That is out in stores now.”
Heldstab shares that they can try so many different flavors because of the versatility of cream.
“Cream is really the best palate,” she says. “You can put so many things into cream and have it just transformed into something really, really beautiful.”
No matter what flavor of Leona’s you try, you can taste the quality. Heldstab shares that every single thing they do is made by hand.
“So we have a peach ice cream. We get crates of peaches from Triple B Farm out in Monongahela, clean them, roast them, blend them, and put them into the ice cream,” she says. “All of our caramel is homemade, all of our fudge sauce is homemade. If there is a nut that has a candy coating, we roasted the nut and put on the candy coating.”
The scoop shop, located in Lawrence Hall, opened recently. This is the business’s first physical scoop shop location.
Heldstab shares that she and Puskarich were initially nervous about opening the storefront, which has been in the works for a few years. However, after a bit of a learning curve, it has been going well.
“I think it’s a really fun opportunity to do different things with our ice cream,” she says. “You can be a little bit more creative. You can dream something up and not have to worry about shelf space in the grocery store and stuff like that.”
Since starting the business, Heldstab has been most surprised by the emotional connection people have to ice cream.
“It’s this thing that’s food but not food,” she explains. “It’s mostly just joy.”
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