BY KEVIN DUGGAN
The husband-and-wife
founders of Prospect Heights
ice cream maker Ample Hills
will leave the company less
than a month after the bankrupt
creamery sold to Oregonian
manufacturing company
Schmitt Industries in June, according
to a July 6 statement.
“It is with deep sadness that
Brian Smith and I have made
the painful decision to move
on from Ample Hills,” wrote
Jackie Cuscuna in a lengthy
post on the ice cream purveyor’s
Instagram page.
The Ample Hills brand,
the 13 store locations, and the
scoop shop’s Red Hook factory
will continue to operate under
new ownership, but Cuscuna
and Smith said they will not be
part of the brand’s future.
“But even in bankruptcy
we had hoped to be a part of the
story moving forward, working
with the new team to help
revive the brand, post COVID.
Unfortunately it hasn’t turned
out that way,” the statement
read.
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Cuscuna and Smith did not
immediately respond to a request
for comment.
Schmitt Industries’ chief
executive offi cer, Michael Zapata,
said in a statement that
he appreciated the brand the
Brooklynites built, but did not
comment as to why the founders
left.
Zapata added that the company
plans to re-hire 200 local
Ample Hills workers and
expects to reopen most of the
nine locations it bought “in the
coming days and weeks.”
Cuscuna and Smith started
selling ice cream from a pushcart
in Prospect Park in 2010,
before opening their fi rst store
on Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect
Heights the following
year, and ultimately growing
to a dozen outposts in the New
York City area — with fi ve of
them in its home borough.
The scoopsters said that
their fi nancial troubles started
well before the COVID-19 outbreak
when they opened a
15,000 square-foot factory and
museum on Van Brunt Street
in 2018, according to the social
media statement.
“While most of our shops
were profi table, the factory
was not at capacity, took a lot
more money to build and more
time to become operational,”
the statement read.
Building the facility was
delayed and beset by cost overruns
that caused Ample Hills
to lose money, with annual
losses climbing to $6.9 million
in 2019, according to the Wall
Street Journal.
In March of this year, as
the coronavirus pandemic
started to ravage the city, the
company laid off all of its employees
and fi led for Chapter
11 bankruptcy, before eventually
selling for $1 million to
the Portland fi rm on June 9,
according to fi lings fi rst reported
by the investing website
Seeking Alpha.
Ample Hills co-founders Jackie Cuscana and Brian Smith will leave the
company. Liz Clayman
The money from the sale
went mostly to paying off bank
loans, according to the Instagram
post, and the couple lamented
the large losses for
themselves and the people they
worked with over the years.
“Many people, from friends
to vendors to the folks who
helped build our company,
lost a lot of money because of
the mistakes we made. And
Brian and I lost everything
we’d worked for over these last
10 years,” they wrote.
The cult creamery was
known for its fun fl avors,
such as “It Came From Gowanus”
— a salty dark chocolate
ice cream paying homage
to Brooklyn’s Nautical Purgatory
and its cleanup with
“deep, dark mystery and endless
surprises,” or their Walt
Whitman-inspired “I Contain
Breakfast Foods.”
NOT SO SWEET
Ample Hills founders depart company
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