Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream has been around since 1945, when founder Alice Handel began serving her single-batch sweet treats using fresh fruit from her garden.
More than 50 years and 50 locations later, a franchisee group with a business background in another sweet treat is scooping up locations throughout North Texas.
Donnie Robertson and Craig Moore, formerly the chief marketing officer and the president of Nothing Bundt Cakes, helped to sell franchises with that business, and now have made the move to frozen dessert and being franchisees themselves.
The duo and their partners embraced Handel’s small-batch, big-servings mentality and are eying at least six more North Texas locations after opening up in Little Elm last year, Plano in March, and in McKinney and Flower Mound in October.
“We fell in love with the product,” Robertson said.
Each store builds on a base that is shipped from Handel’s corporate office in Ohio, adding local ingredients to forge irresistible combinations — in 48 different flavors.
“For our butter pecan, we have huge pecans,” Robertson said. “For our mango, there are huge chunks. We make sure we don’t skimp.”
Another way the local stores scream good customer service is with a collective COVID-19 adaptability. While Robertson admits that opening the Plano location in March made for some challenges, and that business has declined overall, he said his operating group puts customers and their needs first.
“Our Plano location has a drive-through, but at the others, we’ll walk the ice cream out to you curbside. You can pay over the phone,” he said.
With the brand practically unknown to those outside the Midwest, Robertson and his partners are excited to educate local palates. (Statewide, there is only one other Handel’s store, in Houston.) And his group is now hungry for more locations. With a goal of opening 10 stores, they are actively looking at properties across the region.
“The north corridor, above 635, is where we are looking,” Robertson said, such as Allen and Murphy.
And they’re not opposed to moving further west to Fort Worth, either.
“We like end-cap spaces ― we’re picky — we like to have space for outdoor seating. Because eating ice cream is a social activity.”
