Ice cream shop site selection for owners

What to take away

The decision, stated plainly

You are choosing the place where the summer will pay for the winter. Everything else about site selection is detail. A national answer cannot exist.

The two things that decide it, the length of the warm season and the cost of the space through the cold one, are local facts, and the pavement at 8pm looks different on every street.

Define the terms at the right scale

Three words carry this page and are used precisely.

Catchment is where the people on the pavement came from. Residents walking after dinner, tourists between attractions, families leaving a park, workers leaving an office: each is a different catchment with a different hour of peak and a different season.

Capture is the share of people passing who come in. It depends on visibility, the queue being visible from the street, the door being on the right side, and whether there is somewhere to stand and eat. You cannot measure capture until you open, but you can see the things that raise it.

Carry is whether the physical space can hold the operation: power, water, drainage, ventilation, heat rejection, floor loading for a walk-in, a delivery route for dairy, and whatever the health department requires of the fit-out.

Assess what you already have

If you already control a space, start by testing it against the three terms rather than assuming it must work. If you are searching, write down the catchment you want before you look. A beach site and a residential-street site are different businesses, and the product mix you intend to sell should already tell you which one you are.

The site types compared

The table has no ratings because no row is good or bad in itself. The last column is the point: one question per type, answered by standing there.

Set goals that can be measured

Before visiting a single candidate, write down:

The count follows from arithmetic. If 10 people in 100 who pass the door buy, and you need 200 servings in that hour, you need 2,000 passers in that hour. Use your own capture assumption and write it down, because you can only test it after you open.

A candidate is then measured, not judged.

Count the shortlist yourself

A tally counter and a notebook beat any report. Budget about four hours per candidate and spend them at the door.

The warm evening count.

The cold count. Repeat the same spot and the same method at midday on a cold weekday, and if you can, at 8pm on a cold weekend evening as well. The cold evening number is the one that tells you whether pints and cakes have anyone to sell to.

The ratio. Divide the warm evening count by the cold count. The result is the site's season ratio. A high ratio means the site lives on summer and needs a reserve to carry it through winter, which may mean events, wholesale or closing. A low ratio means a steadier but smaller business. Neither is wrong by itself.

Put the survivors on one sheet and fill it in after each visit:

Understand the constraints

The season. Count each candidate twice: a warm weekend evening, and a cold weekday midday. The ratio between the two is the season problem for that site in one number. It does not disqualify a site, but it sizes the reserve you need.

The building. Batch freezers, hardening cabinets and display cases draw serious power and reject serious heat. Ask where condensers will go and whether the landlord permits them there. Ask what the supply to the unit is and what it would cost to upgrade. Ask where a walk-in would stand and whether the floor takes it.

Ask how dairy is delivered and where waste goes. Ask who pays for the supply upgrade, where grease goes, and where a summer team changes and stores belongings. A space that fails any of these is a space that cannot carry the business, however good the pavement.

Power and build-out costs vary widely, so treat the figures as typical: $3,000 to $15,000 for a service upgrade and $50,000 to $200,000 to fit out an empty shell. Get a written quote before you compare candidates.

Add up the nameplate kilowatts of every machine on your equipment list and give the total to an electrician. A small retail unit may carry it, or it may not.

The authority. The local health department will have requirements for the fit-out, and which body that is depends on the state; the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: State Retail and Food Service Codes and Regulations directory names it.

Get their list for the specific space before the lease binds you. What they ask for becomes a cost line in the comparison between candidates. The licensing questions that surround this are worth reading alongside.

Accessibility. The U.S. Department of Justice: ADA Guide for Small Businesses explains what federal accessibility law asks of a small business in an existing building.

A single step at the door, a counter too high to reach from a wheelchair, a restroom that cannot be entered. Each is a question the guide addresses in terms of what is readily achievable, and each is far cheaper to settle before the fit-out.

Choose an approach

There are two honest strategies, and they do not mix well.

The peak maximizer wants the highest count of the year and the shortest season. The site is a tourist strip, a beachfront, or a corner that fills on warm weekends. The plan is to open hard for four or five months and cover the whole year's rent. The risk is a cold July.

The year-round builder wants a base that keeps coming back. The site is a main street, a residential corner, or a street near a school or campus. Pints, tubs, delivery and holidays carry the thin months, and the summer peak matters less. The risk is a summer too small to carry the rest of the year.

Pick one before you view anything. Most disappointing sites are peak-maximizer locations taken by year-round builders who then discover February.

Plan the search in phases

The general market research and planning steps in the U.S. Small Business Administration: SBA Business Guide apply to the desk part of this work; the pavement part is yours.

Budget beyond the rent

Rent is the number on the listing. The site's true cost adds the electrical upgrade, the condenser installation, the health department's fit-out list, the months of rent before opening, and the winter reserve the site's season ratio implies. Two sites with the same rent can differ enormously on the rest.

A common food service rule of thumb puts rent at 6 to 10 percent of sales, measured over a year. Treat that as a typical range, not a rule. A seasonal shop often runs above it in the peak months and leans on the reserve in the rest.

Decide what to hand to a professional

A refrigeration contractor should see the space before you commit, for the electrical load and the heat rejection. A lawyer should read the lease clause about who pays for work the health department requires. The counting is yours.

The clauses worth a lawyer's reading, at minimum:

Live with the result

A site is a decision you live with for the whole lease, through every winter in it. Running the shop there is a job of evenings, weekends and holidays, which is how the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Food Service Managers profile describes food service management.

The site that makes those hours pay is the one where the count at 8pm on a hot Saturday was real.

The wider startup framework puts this decision in its sequence: after the product, before the equipment order, and long before the lease.

Common questions

Is a tourist location always better?

It has the higher peak and the worse winter. Whether that is better depends on whether you can afford the winter, which is a question about your reserve, not about the site.

How do I count a site properly?

Stand at the door with a tally sheet or a hand clicker and count people passing on foot for one hour on a warm weekend evening. Do the same time-of-day sample on three different days, because one evening can be a street festival and the next a washout.

Repeat at midday on a cold weekday, and again at 8pm on a winter evening. Record the date, the weather and the temperature beside each count. The method is set out in full in the site-choosing article on this site.

What if the perfect corner has a weak electrical supply?

Get a written quote for the upgrade and add it to the site's cost. If the landlord will not permit the work, the corner is not perfect.