Business Spotlight: Alsies of Alpharetta with Ron Bain

Ron Bain on Launching Alsies Ice Cream Trucks in Alpharetta: Modern Tech, Events, and Community Fun

http://alsies.com/alpharetta

Host Stacey Poehler interviews Ron Bain, owner of Alsies of Alpharetta and also Bar-B-Clean, about why he added an ice cream truck franchise after his wife took over the day-to-day Bar-B-Clean operations. Ron explains being drawn to Alsies’ fun, updated take on the traditional ice cream truck: clean professional branding, classic treats plus gourmet Nightingale ice cream sandwiches, and “ambassadors” focused on customer experience. He highlights the Alsies app that notifies customers of neighborhood visits, shows live truck tracking, lets users request a stop, and helps optimize routes using download and sales data. Ron shares event booking details and pricing, notes they avoid gated neighborhoods without HOA approval, and discusses expansion plans from two trucks toward six or seven across Alpharetta, Milton, Johns Creek, and Forsyth County. He also describes a school voting contest won by Blacks Mill Elementary and upcoming neighborhood giveaway promotions, plus contact info via website, phone, and email.

00:00 Welcome and Introductions

00:27 Why an Ice Cream Truck

02:16 Franchise Leap of Faith

03:16 Memories and Outdoor Joy

04:18 Modern Truck Makeover

06:06 App Tracking and Routes

09:10 Favorite Treats Spotlight

10:50 Ambassador Experience

12:01 Booking Events and Pricing

16:24 Growth Plans and More Trucks

18:01 School Contest and Giveaways

20:47 Contact Info and Wrap Up

21:59 Podcast Closing Credits

Transcript

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Narrator 0:00

This is The Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacy Pohler

Stacey Poehler 0:13

Hey, everybody. I'm excited to be chatting with Ron Bain. He is the owner of Alsies of Alpharetta. You might also remember him as the owner of Bar-B-Clean. Welcome, Ron.

Ron Bain 0:24

Hi, Stacy. Thank you for having me.

Stacey Poehler 0:27

Yeah, so let's talk about this new business venture. I mean- Yeah you do the barbecue cleaning, now you're doing an ice cream truck. How does that all work together to maybe help your customers have a good summer and a good backyard experience?

Ron Bain 0:42

Yeah. To be honest, The Bar-B-Clean business is set up really where my wife now pretty much runs that. We got three guys out in the field working full time. It's a pretty simple business. So she's running that. I'm not that involved there. So we wanted to have another business with the intent of kind of bolting on to Bar-B-Clean. We're thinking outdoor living home services certainly. As we develop relationships with clients, it just, it would made sense as a natural extension to have something. I looked for months and nothing quite connected with me. I worked with a consultant and they, the way that works is, every week or so they'll give you three or four things to consider and then you just start to whittle down from there. I had told them I want, I was looking for something to bolt on with Bar-B-Clean. I wanted nothing to do with food nor brick and mortar, right? And they had brought to me, Alsies came up, even though it didn't fit really what I said I was looking for. They says, "Ron, I just want you to look at this." I'm like, "Huh, okay." And I I didn't decline it, I just put it to the side, and I looked at some other things, a window cleaning business and a restoration thing. And I just could not get off of the Alsies thing 'cause it just sounded so fun and exciting in taking this old concept, an old idea of an ice cream truck, which really we don't see much anymore. And there's some reason we can talk more about that later. You don't see many of them around anymore, but with this modern twist, with the technology that they've brought to it. And I just, I, even though it didn't fit what I was looking for, I kept on coming back to it. And then I had a conversation with that team, and they're a new franchise as well. They just started franchising last March. So they're very new. And not only, would I be starting a new business in the area, getting the brand out there, they are new themselves in franchising, even though they started five years ago in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Once I met that team- I was sold. When you sell, when you become a f- a franchisee for any system, it's a 10-year agreement. And what I've learned is you're really, you're hitching yourself to somebody for 10 years, it's really the people. And I just, these I just can't say enough about the franchisor. The couple that started this and their team are fantastic, very forward-thinking strategic, but just really good people. And so it just felt right. My heart could not I could not ignore that. Just made me feel happy just even talking to them. It's I gotta do this." We signed the agreement last April, and and I had my first truck the end of June, wow. But the way I see it, Stacy is even though it's not related to outdoor living, I think of- when it comes to our services we do with grills, repairing and keeping them safe and extending the life and the health benefits I think of that outdoor space Is really you're making memories with the people we love, right? And I think about Michelle and I in our place, our deck and outdoor kitchen, how many great times we had with our family and our friends out there. And so it's really with all our customers. That space is just it's like the, like a kitchen in a home. It's these places where you make these lifelong memories. Alsies it's different, but you're, it's an experience. You are, you're putting a smile on someone's face. Everybody goes through whatever they're going through in life. It kicks us all around and we take our lumps. But gosh, that five minutes with the ice cream truck was, re- really made me happy, so that's really what it is. It's that, that connecting the positive experience and memories you can you, that are lifelong.

Stacey Poehler 4:16

Awesome. Awesome. Can you talk a little bit about, how, what Alsies take is on the traditional ice cream truck- Sure and how they've modernized that and, kept some of the core experience there?

Ron Bain 4:29

So they have done, that team did such a good job, in my opinion, on the branding. It's just, it's a very... Everybody responds to our truck. It's a very cute, professional, clean truck. So that's number one because, and I think we've all seen some of the other, I don't want to badmouth anybody, but we've seen some ice cream trucks out there that are scary looking, right? And so it's elevating that the overall appearance, first of all. The other part is the menu. We have a lot of the the s- the same what we call classics and characters that pretty much any ice cream truck has, like a SpongeBob or a Spider-Man that all the kids love, Bomb Pops. We have all that stuff. But we also have some gourmet options on the menu that are fantastic. These ice cream sandwiches made by a company called Nightingales which is owned by a married couple in Richmond, Virginia. They are unbelievable, and Alsies has a very solid partnership with them. So that's one thing that's required in all of us franchisees to have Nightingale ice cream sandwiches, but why wouldn't we? They're amazing. They separate us. And it's, kids love what they love. SpongeBob, Bomb Pops. Adults, we have a little bit more of acquired taste, and some of these gourmet ice cream sandwiches are fantastic. And then the other part is our ambassadors. We don't call them drivers. They're ambassadors because they are an ambassador to our brand, and they are setting the tone for that experience. I say all the time When we pull up into a neighborhood, 90% of the people that are buying ice cream from us have ice cream in their freezer. They're buying from us 'cause they had that experience. Which is, just, it's making everybody happy for that few minutes you get with them. The other part of the business is the technology piece, and this is what really was the aha for me, is taking this old idea of delivering a great ice cream truck experience, but with modern technology. And so they created an app. And the reason where this came from is kids really don't play outside like they used to, unfortunately. They're not playing kickball as much. They're out there riding their bikes, but it's not as much as they used to 'cause we have our phones. They're on the, in the basement watching Netflix or on their phone playing games, whatever. A way to communicate with them, and or with the parents certainly. And so that's what the app does. And if someone has the app on their phone, number one, they get a notification that morning, "Hey, great news, Alsies is gonna be in your neighborhood between 3:00 and 4:00 today." So right there they get a notice to expect us. Then when we arrive into the neighborhood, they get another push notification on their phone, "Alsies is nearby, has arrived." Or it says, "Alsies is nearby." And then they can see it on the app, just like DoorDash, you can see where the truck is going through the neighborhood. And even though they can see the route and know we're gonna come by their house, it's funny, a lot of times kids get on their bike, they get... their family gets in the golf cart, and they come and track us down. Which is always fun. But they can see where we're at, and then when we get close enough, like within a quarter of a mile, they can press stop on their phone, and then it guarantees we are going to come to their door, and they will get another notice, "Alsies has arrived." And then we wait five minutes or whatever for them to, fini- pu- put the movie on pause or whatever and come up and get their ice cream. So it's just, it's a way to communicate with our customers in a modern way. And it, that app is also how we go about assigning routes. As we build up our app followers, I'm looking on a map where the, where those downloads are, and that's, we make that into a regular route. 'Cause it's the same. We got a bunch of people who have the app, they want us, and we make that a regular route then.

Stacey Poehler 8:03

Sounds like that creates a lot of efficiencies, too, for you as a business owner.

Ron Bain 8:08

100%. 100%, and I can see, I can look at all our routes. I know it tells me the last time we were in that neighborhood, what our average sales per hour are in that neighborhood. So I can get, very to your point, become very efficient. We're still working through that. We're, we'll make mistakes where we go into a neighborhood that we thought would be a good neighborhood. And then what our ambassadors are trained to have a conversation with the folks that they see is, "Hey, are there a lot of kids in this neighborhood?" if you haven't been there before. And sometimes we'll hear, "Ah, not really so much anymore. 20 years ago, 15 years ago, they were all here, but now they've all kind of grown." Not that we won't automatically deny that neighborhood, 'cause sometimes retirees, they love our ice cream too. And if they're buying, then we'll make that a route. But we're still learning our big neighborhoods that we can kinda count out with a lot of kids, and we try to hit those every few weeks. You still want it to be special. You can't go there every day, even once a week. It's every few weeks. It's a special event when Alsies is coming into the neighborhood.

Stacey Poehler 9:09

That's awesome. And I know you mentioned that, you guys have the classic treats, and then you have some more upscale gourmet options. Yeah. What's your favorite thing on the ice cream truck?

Ron Bain 9:19

Gosh, I would say my favorite is still probably the Cookie Monster ice cream sandwich. Cookie Monster is it's vanilla ice cream with chocolate chip chunks with a chocolate chip cookie crust. So if you like chocolate chip cookies, which I do, they're amazing. They're probably one of our best sellers. Also, the classic ice cream s- sandwiches is awesome. But we have strawberry shortcake, we have key lime pie, we have chocolate blackout. The chefs who make these up in Richmond, they're incredible. The chocolate blackout actually has chunks of chocolate cake in the ice cream.

Stacey & Ron 9:56

Oh, wow.

Ron Bain 9:57

So if you like chocolate, it's really good. And then we have another gourmet option we just brought in here a couple months ago. It's called Not Fried Chicken ice cream, and it looks like a drumstick. It looks like fried chicken. And what it is, it's vanilla ice cream with a chocolate-covered pretzel in the middle, which is the bone, and then it's rolled in c- cornflakes. And so I br- it was a thing on Twitter... no not Twitter. No, she kept getting together. Instagram Anyway, one of those... No, it wasn't Instagram. What's the... TikTok. It was a big TikTok thing last fall. I found it, I brought it in a, like kind of a gimmicky thing. The reality is they're very good. They're very yummy. They really are. So it's it's not just kind of a cute, funny idea. They're actually very tasty,

Stacey Poehler 10:43

oh. I'm gonna download the app so you can come to my neighborhood and I can try one. It sounds

Stacey & Ron 10:48

good.

Stacey Poehler 10:50

Yeah. How do your ambassadors and the team en- ensure that when the truck's coming to the neighborhood that it does feel like a special event, for for the kids and the families?

Ron Bain 11:01

We always tell 'em, we, we want our ambassadors to be as excited as the kids are who are coming up to the truck to, to buy some ice cream. We want that kind of energy because For so many of them, it is the first time they've ever experienced an ice cream truck, because you just- don't see it that much anymore. And I love that. It's funny, is like when we first got started, I would drive the truck primarily 'cause I'm just a, I, it's... Number one, it's fun. But just to learn the ins and outs of the job. So I did it, and what I found is a lot of times it was the parents... We've got the ice cream music going. I always say it's at the right level of obnoxiousness- where you hear it, but I'm not like, killing people. But it's the parents who know the music. The kids oftentimes don't know what that is, but the parents know. They bring 'em out for the, their kids' first, ice cream experience and it's just, it's the best feeling in the world. I love kids and to see the expression on their face, how excited they get, it's, it's a lot of fun.

Stacey Poehler 12:00

That's awesome. For listeners who wanna bring the truck to their neighborhood, or maybe they have an event in mind, or they wanna bring it to their business- Yeah How, how do they do that?

Ron Bain 12:11

Yeah. We've talked about the neighborhood routes and how that works. But we also love doing events. Whether birth- this month, May, we have birthday parties, we got grad parties, we've got HOAs that are doing parties for end of s- school. We're doing school events, teacher appreciation, corporate events. It's like all that stuff. We haven't done weddings yet. I've reached out to wedding planners and some of the sites. I hope to get some of that business maybe this fall. But the way you do it is just, it's easy. It's www.alsies, A-L-S-I-E-S, .com/alpharetta. And on there it's book now, and there's a, it's, we got private events fundraisers we do with schools, birthday parties. Just someone selects from that. It's $85 to book us for an event if you're within 25 miles of Milton. It's $115 if it's outside of that, but most of our business is within 25 miles of Milton. But $85 for an hour, $50 for additional hours. We don't then charge a minimum of any type. So if someone's gonna have an event they book us for 85 bucks, there's 10 people there, there's 5 people there, that's, that, that's fine. We don't have a, there's no minimum. But it's as simple as that. And our items are We have all the classics and characters that the kids love, and some po- all natural popsicles, which are fantastic, made here locally. Those are $5. And we have the gourmet options at $7. And we're, we sometimes modify the menu. People, for various events, only wanna do the $5 items to hit a budget, so we just have a different menu. Our menu board is digital, so we can modify that easily and to meet someone's budget. But it's really it's very easy and seamless to, to book us on our website.

Stacey Poehler 13:52

And then for the neighborhood routes, you're saying you base that on who's downloading the app?

Ron Bain 13:57

Yeah. So what we'll do, typically what the model is I wanna have one event per day per truck. And then when we have an event scheduled for that day, we will find neighborhoods that are in the, in that area to do the routes. And I look at the app downloads and the sales that we see in those neighborhoods. We're still investigating and going to a neighborhood for the first time and learning. But but that's how it works. It's really those app downloads and and then the sales history we have.

Stacey Poehler 14:27

How does it work if the neighborhoods are gated?

Ron Bain 14:31

Yeah. Great question. That's, I wonder about that. We don't go in 'em. However if people in the HOA would like us to come in there and give us approval, there's a lot of nice neighborhoods that I know there's a lot of kids in there. I'd love to have the opportunity to go in them and sell ice cream and be happy to go through any kind of background checks. All our people are checked whatever you need to do. But currently we don't do any of those.

Stacey Poehler 14:54

Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Can you think about a story that you that you've had on the truck, an interaction that kinda just, made your day- Yeah and was very special for you?

Ron Bain 15:06

Yeah. Just, we did a school event at Sawnee Elementary, I think it was in February And I didn't have a driver available, so I did the event. And and it was a daddy-daughter thing. And and just I'm a girl dad, i've got my 26-year-old and 22-year-old. And so going back and then seeing, the daddy-daughter thing, it just, it just warms my heart. Remember those days, it doesn't seem that like that long ago. But just some interactions with the people there it was fantastic. I was leaving the event and it was night nighttime and I'm driving back and we... I show up at a stoplight and a car, a truck next to me the back window is dark and rolls down, and this little girl looks out, and she waves at me, and I remembered her. And it just, I just, it just, it warmed my heart. This little girl was so excited to wave at the ice cream truck guy- at the stoplight. And it's just gosh, this is just a lot of fun. Yeah.

Stacey Poehler 16:07

What kind of uniform do the ambassadors wear? Is it the classic ice cream- No cream man?

Ron Bain 16:13

It was, they get a choice of a pink or a blue Alsies t-shirt. Okay. Whatever's comfortable. But no, there's no hat or anything like that. It's just a T-shirt.

Stacey Poehler 16:22

Got it. Got it. So what's on the horizon? As you look kinda towards the future, how many trucks are you running now, and are you planning on expanding?

Ron Bain 16:31

Yes. So we just got our second truck up and running here a few weeks ago. And glad I got it when I did because we're very busy in May where we've got trucks that are booked in events all day long. And so I anticipate that I will need a third. I'll probably wait till next spring, but we'll go to a third. It really comes down to is once I get to the point where I'm having to decline event opportunities because we're already booked- that's when I know it's time to get another truck. Then we begin to expand our... Our footprint is Alpharetta Milton, Johns Creek, and all of Forsyth County. Okay. So it's a big area. It's, Yeah the population's roughly 400,000. I'm gonna need a I believe it might take a three, four years to get there. I'm gonna need six to seven trucks. And kinda setting up the business to be ready for that kind of an operation, that's a lot of activity. I'm not ready to hire a general manager yet, but I will at a certain point because it's a lot to manage all that.

Stacey & Ron 17:31

Yeah.

Ron Bain 17:31

But the, I the market is there. Kona Ice, which everybody's familiar what they've done, and they do a great job. They've got great branding, great trucks, And they've been doing it for 15, 20 years. And I really respect what they've done. We're simply just an alternative for ice cream and hope to get some of that business out there that's looking for something other than a a shaved ice treat. And but I absolutely believe that, six to seven trucks is what I'm gonna need here in the next few years

Stacey Poehler 18:00

Awesome. Awesome. And I know you recently ran a contest where you were going to bring the truck to a school. Can you talk about who won that contest?

Ron Bain 18:09

Yeah. I- I've said this to our friends. I was a corporate guy for 30-plus years and I worked out of the house or was gone on a plane. And since we started Bar-B-Clean, one of the things I loved about it is it's really got us more involved in the community. I'm part of the chamber of commerce, I'm meeting more business owners, just getting out and about. But in terms of our personal life, we live in a bubble where our friends are in our neighborhood, the schools are right outside the neighborhood. Branching out and learning the rest of the area that we cover has been a learning curve for me. So when it came to the schools I decided to do a contest where those in the co- I post- made the post, whoever, whatever school got mentioned the most in comments won a free ice cream day for the students and teachers and staff, and I did it over 10 days. It was exhausting. I did daily updates on the leaderboard. I found a service that helps me calculate that, but it was a lot. But I learned so much about the area and the s- the schools and certainly the energy and spirit behind some of these schools. And Blacks Mill Elementary in Dawsonville, they won. They came through hard the last couple days and kept their lead, and I think they had like over 500 votes, 550 votes, something like that. One vote- Wow per person that was a lot. Anyway, we're doing that this Thursday, and we'll have both trucks at the school. And we've got a big I don't even know what you would call those blow-up things. Like the, the- Oh, yeah 13 feet tall. We haven't brought it out yet. I just got it. But we'll be rolling that out here on Thursday for the kids and just to make the whole thing fun and be giving out ice cream to those folks. I picked up a lot of followers from that and a lot of energy. Bottom line is we're just getting our brand out there. People don't know who we are. The name is funny. Alsi's, what... what is that? And by the way it's the founders, it's their three kids' names squished together. that's where the name comes from. So anyway, just trying to get the name out there. I've decided to do the same type of thing for a neighborhood. So we... i'm probably gonna put this out next week, but the neighborhood with the most amount of votes in the comments, as long as they follow us, they download our app, and they vote for vote, that neighborhood, we'll bring both trucks to that neighborhood and for a couple hours- We'll give out free ice cream. And again, just getting our name out there. When you start a new business, that's the... one of the most difficult things is just making people aware that you exist. And the school event was a big success in that way, and I expect the neighborhood thing to do that. Create the same kind of energy and be fun. We'll do it in June some time with the neighborhood. Yeah look forward to that. Yeah.

Stacey Poehler 20:46

That's awesome. How can people get in touch? Obviously the app's available on the App Store.

Ron Bain 20:52

Yeah. You can do that. Go to our website, www.alzy's.com/alpharetta. Our menu's on there. You can download our app from there. You can book us from there. Everything. But you're always welcome to call me. Our number is 470-203-6449. That's 470-203-6449. I pick up the phone. If you have any questions, if there's something special you want for an event. There's all kinds of things that people wanna modify, whether it's the menu. Sometimes we don't show the pricing because they're doing it as a gift. It... All kind- we can modify, 'cause again, our menu board is digital, so we can do what- whatever the customer wants. Yeah or my email is alpharetta@alzys.com.

Stacey Poehler 21:40

Awesome. Thanks so much for joining us today, Ron. It was really great to hear about the new business, and I'm excited to see the truck out there in the, our neighborhoods.

Ron Bain 21:48

Yeah. Stacy great seeing you and great talking to you. Yeah. Appreciate the time. Appreciate the opportunity to talk about Alzy's.

Stacey Poehler 21:55

Yeah. It was great. Thank you. All right.

Narrator 21:59

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, Milton and More. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpmilton.com. That's

22:18

gnpmilton.com, or call 470-664-4930.