Cake batter, pistachio, chocolate and coconut are some of the flavors that ice cream entrepreneur Jennifer Francis calls her favorites. Gaga's Ice Cream, the business she started 7 years ago, brought these and more flavors to the Charles Village community and became a local landmark.
It was not an easy decision when Francis announced that she would sell Gaga's on Sept. 1, 2006.
In a letter to her customers, Francis explained, "At one point, I attended graduate school, worked full time, attended to a family and still found time to handle the day-to-day operations of the ice cream parlor. 17 hours a day for seven seasons have now left me feeling burned out.
"I knew that the ice-cream business was seasonal, but what I didn't realize was that it was so labor-intensive. I can truly say that my goals were accomplished in that I felt that many of my customers received a product that they were happy with. I was satisfied that they were pleased with the service they received," said Francis.
Walking into Gaga's now, little seems to have changed but the sign on the front door promising "Dominion Ice Cream: Tastes Good & Good For You." Yet, upon sampling new owner Donna Calloway's vegetable ice cream, it appears Dominion will bring some unique flavor to Charles Village.
While Francis purchased Gaga's ice cream from Beach Bums, a local ice cream company in Towson where the ice cream was made and then shipped to Gaga's, Calloway creates Dominion Ice Cream on site. In addition to maintaining the traditional selection of flavors, Calloway's homemade specialty is vegetable-flavored ice cream.
"We add fresh, raw vegetables to our ice cream to take it to another nutritional level," said Calloway.
After 30 years of working at Zurich Insurance Company, Calloway chose early retirement in order to pursue the business of her hobby -- making delicious and innovative ice cream.
"That is how committed I am to this business," she said. Her full-time job now is inventing an array of vegetable-based flavors that she hopes will appeal to children as a healthier alternative to traditional ice creams.
The new flavors include muscle up (spinach), eagle eye (carrot), boney coney (tomato), and sweet tooth (sweet potato), jalape96o pepper and a non-alcoholic Kahlua and cream.
Sophomore Kathryn Robinson raved, "My favorite flavor was probably muscle up. It didn't taste like vegetables; it tasted like delicious ice cream."
Calloway will continue to offer some of Gaga's most popular flavors, as well as traditional ice cream flavors such as chocolate and French vanilla. "We do have some of the ones that Jennifer had, some of the ones that the neighborhood liked. But the focal point of this ice cream parlor is the vegetable ice cream, because you can't get that anywhere else," she explained.
When asked how she makes her vegetable ice cream, Calloway was hesitant to reveal her recipes. Essentially she makes her traditional ice cream mix alongside the vegetable pur8ee and later blends them together. "Once I have the vegetable mix, I marry it with the ice-cream mix," she said.
Calloway summed up her offerings: "We've got a plethora of different things -- the old and the new and the traditional."
After trying a scoop of Dominion Ice Cream, sophomore Ashley Colletti commented, "Where else can you get ice cream like that? It's important to support independent businesses, especially with the new changes in Charles Village."
