We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paul & Jenelle Lasko a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Paul & Jenelle thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?
I (Jenelle) and my son, have spent a lot of time in Louisiana over the years. It is one of my favorite food destinations so I take trips to New Orleans and Lafayette as often as possible.
One sunny day in Colorado, my son asked me if we could go get a Snoball after school. I realized in that moment that Colorado did not have a SINGLE Snoball in the whole state, all we could find was snow cones!!!! Of course I immediately told Paul that I need to build a food truck!!!! He thought I was absolutely crazy and could not understand or imagine the fluffy, soft, ice I was describing to him. As well as the decadent pastry flavors and unique qualities that a Snoball possesses. On top of this I was a full time hairdresser for 19 years and Paul worked full time at the VA hospital as a biomedical engineer. How would we ALSO take on this truck??
I booked a flight to New Orleans and took Paul on a tasty Snoball adventure!! When we returned home Paul got to work building our food truck by hand from the ground up!!! I wanted my own spin on the traditional Sno-Ball so I began creating unique recipes. We were scientists for a while figuring out the PERFECT way to make our 10lb ice blocks. The system we have created is immaculate in our humble opinion!
Opening the food truck was very scary for the first time but we had a local, very popular brewery that was willing to allow us to debut there, as well as our friends and family standing behind us! Some of our very closest friends were our first employees. Candice (best friend of 20 years) was our merchandise producer from a distance in Texas, and Ashley (best friend of 25+ years) was the first to work on the truck with us. We won best dessert in Castle Rock 2 years in a row. The Snowy Flamingo made 4 different news appearances at their request. A magazine article was written about us! We worked many Veteran events, town events, private catering, fair/rodeos,etc. and regularly parked at the brewery that helped start it all! As a small, veteran/ family owned and operated establishment (not a franchise), It was mind blowing to us the success we gained so quickly! We were so grateful that we had brought such a delicious treat to our fellow Coloradoins! We will always be so thankful to all of our loyal patrons/friends/family in Castle Rock!
We couldn’t believe that our dream had truly become a reality! After 4 years of operation we realized the only sad part about the Flamingo was that we could only operate around 5 months a year because of the weather in Colorado. We slowly made some very difficult decisions to once again take a giant leap of faith and move to somewhere warm, quit our full time careers, and run The Snowy Flamingo year round!!!!! My mom, as well as other family live in Florida so we started making trips and fell in love rather quickly with the Tampa, St. Pete, Clearwater area. We decided it was time to go for it!!!!
We were lucky enough to convince Candice to make the move with us and start a whole new life!!!!! She is an unbelievably hard working asset to our team! Not to mention having your best friend with you all the time is AMAZING!!!! Here we are in Florida starting all over again trying to spread the Snoball word! It is always a challenge to get people to come to the truck and see the difference between a snoball and a snow cone, but once they do they are hooked!!!! We are diligently working to make connections and book as many events as possible! We can not wait to be out more and more and build relationships with the people of Florida the way we did in Castle Rock Colorado! Thank you in advance to everyone who becomes our new friends, and loyal customers!!!
We hope to make the people of Florida just as happy as the people of Colorado! Come by and taste a family created/owned/operated, unique treat made with love!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
The distinct differences that we believe set The Snowy Flamingo apart is our relentless dedication to an exemplary product as well as our love of getting to know people and treating all of our customers as friends! We took a lot of time in creating a slow freeze process for our 10lb blocks of ice to ensure a proper shave of fluffy soft ice. Never crunchy and hard!! We also make our syrups in house so they will always be consistent, thick, rich and delicious. We like to have fun on our truck!! We even have built in speakers on the outside to play our happy upbeat flamingo music! The Snowy Flamingo always hands out mardi gras beads for free as well as our custom stickers! As dog/animal lovers we also always give free pup cups to your furry friends!
As a major sweet treat girlie myself, I am obsessed with creating new and exciting flavor combinations to excite our followers as well as new customers! This is another thing that sets us apart. We have a classic menu which is ice topped with syrup, and a gourmet menu that is ever changing. These gourmet snoballs are my creative take, with all kinds of delicious toppings! Strawberry Shortcake has always been our best selling flavor so I keep it on the menu at all times! It is strawberry shortcake syrup topped with whipped cream, fresh strawberries, vanilla cookie crumble, and strawberry glaze drizzle. When we came to Florida I decided the other flavor I would keep on the menu at all times is Key Lime Pie, This snoball is key lime pie syrup topped with whipped cream, graham cracker pie crust crumbles, condensed milk drizzle and a gummy lime wedge.
I like to keep 3 rotating flavors, this month as an example I created: The basic witch (a play on the pumpkin spice latte), Mint Chippy (chocolate, andies candies, chocolate cookie crumble..) and Caramel apple pop (a green apple, caramel delight). Every month you can check back for whatever my taste buds and mind have concocted!! We offer a flight of 4, 4oz snoballs so that you can have a taste of whatever flavors you are wanting to try!!
We also have a program called The Flock Club. Candice hand makes 20 oz. quality tumblers with all different designs! If you purchase one of these tumblers you become a member of The Flock Club. This allows you to bring your tumbler back to the truck every time you visit and fill your 20 oz tumbler for the price of a 16 oz (our largest size).
If you become a regular customer of The Snowy Flamingo you will always feel welcomed by myself, Paul and Candice and you will never be disappointed in our product that you have come to love! If you are an event organizer, you will come to see that The Snowy Flamingo is never flaky and always holds true to our promises!
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
I think it is interesting and important to note the way we funded our food truck. Paul and I made the decision to 100% fund the truck ourselves with no loans or anything of that nature. Of course we both had full time successful careers that enabled us to do this, we still were not ready to purchase a huge food truck completely decked out as we were still unsure of what our success would look like.
Instead we purchased a brand new trailer, gutted it ourselves. Paul and his dad did every bit of electrical and plumbing work. We built the walls, the counters, installed the speakers we wanted, painted the outside etc. There is not a spot on that truck that was not built with blood, sweat, tears and passion. I hired one of my tattoo artists to design and create The Snowy Flamingo logo. We trademarked the logo on our own, paid for all of our inspections, taxes, equipment, product and events right out of our very own pockets.
For us this was the best decision we ever made. The truck was successful (luckily) and we were able to pay ourselves back rather quickly and be debt free.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
The only way we can grow our customer base is to be out in the public eye and convince people to give The Snowy Flamingo a try!
This is the struggle we currently face while starting over in a new state, however it is also a challenge and exciting every time we book a new event. In our eyes there is no event too small as we begin our journey because you never know who you will meet. Every last individual who tries our product is deeply important to us since we know they will spread The Snowy Flamingo word to their friends!
In addition, we have always been able to grow our clientele and retain them as well because we are genuinely invested in making people happy, giving respect to all and curating friendships.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thesnowyflamingo.com
- Instagram: thesnowyflamingo
- Facebook: The Snowy Flamingo
- Other: Email: [email protected]
Phone #: (720)745-1886
Image Credits
N/A we take all our own photos