We were lucky to catch up with Katherine Heldstab recently and have shared our conversation below.

Katherine, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

When we first started, sourcing ingredients was really hard. It wasn’t cost effective to buy at a big box store, we needed suppliers. But suppliers have minimums and they were WAY outside our budget at the time. We were making 80 ice cream sandwiches a week (now we make 2-3,000).

A few months into our business, my wife and business partner Christa and I were out having drinks when Larry asked us to sit with him. Larry Lagattuta, owner of the iconic Enrico Biscotti in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, was a living legend in Pittsburgh. He had a big personality and even bigger heart. Christa had known him for years and as we caught up he asked, “what are you two up to?” We explained our business and without hesitation, he came at us with rapidfire questions: where do you get your flour and sugar? What are your margins? What volume do you need to do to grow? Once he was satisfied, he said, you need a better price on your flour and sugar. While I agreed, I told him we couldn’t afford the minimum order.

The next thing I know, Larry leaned close and said, you need to buy your flour off another bakery. He sat up, extended his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Larry, I buy pallets of flour and sugar, would you like to buy them off of me at cost?” From that moment on, we ordered weekly for the next 6 years. Then covid hit and by that time we were able to afford delivery minimums.

Without Larry’s generosity and kindness, we wouldn’t have been able to scale as fast with solid profit margins. Sadly Larry passed in 2023. He left a hole in the community and in our hearts. He helped us with the simplest thing but it made all the difference.

Katherine, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Katie Heldstab and Christa Puskarich are the team behind Leona’s Ice Cream. Growing up in the Midwest dairy and ice cream were always part of Katie’s world, but severe lactose intolerance made enjoying ice cream just a fantasy. Fast forward to 2010 and couple received an ice cream maker for their wedding. Not content with non-dairy options, Katie proceeded to, “just make it myself.” With a ton of research, a creative thinking, and a lot of testing, the couple created super premium ice cream that is 100% lactose free and 100% real dairy. It became Leona’s Brand Promise.

In 2014, the couple were working full time jobs and making ice cream sandwiches at night and on weekends. Leona’s started taking off and in 2016 Katie left her job in public relations followed by Christa in 2018 exiting a career in the legal field. Two career shifts, and a stint at culinary school later, what started with a countertop ice cream maker in the back of a coffee shop quickly turned into a full-scale scratch kitchen and a team of pastry pros churning out hundreds of flavor combinations.

Our company started with the simple idea that ice cream sandwiches are iconic and we can riff on that one thing in any direction our heart desires. The combination of handmade ice cream and homemade cookies was a winner.

We knew we didn’t have enough money to open a store, so we built our wholesale network. Starting with one shop, we expanded over time into more than 60 locations including all Pittsburgh area Giant Eagle Market Districts.

Post pandemic, the landscape is vastly different. Shifting buying patterns, increasing ingredient and labor costs all lead to the conclusion that wholesale would not be sustainable forever. So in 2025, Leona’s is opening its first stand-alone scoop shop in the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

We are incredibly proud of the brand and products we’ve built. We hold true to our brand promise while we offer a true high end ice cream experience, just sans lactose. Dairy free alternatives have come a long way, but to an ice cream lover, it’s just not the same. Leona’s Ice Cream starts with 16% butterfat dairy from local farms and is flavored by hand with one of the hundreds of scratch made sauces, cakes, candies and swirls made in our own kitchen.

The thing we are proudest of is our dedication to quality sourcing and making everything in house. Strawberry ice cream starts with hundreds of pounds of strawberries. Pretzel cookies start with grinding pretzels into flour as the base of the cookie. Heath Candy or caramel, fudge sauce or raspberry ripple, it’s all made in our kitchen and all lactose free.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

We did it the hard way, penny by penny. We didn’t have the time in business to be able to go to the bank so we got a crowdfunded Kiva loan for $5,000. It paid for our first small ice cream maker. From there we self-funded the entire business step by step to get it off the ground. We kept our jobs until the company could pay for it’s own growth.

We always wanted to grow organically, find the next opportunity and scale to meet it. It felt more authentic to us, less risky. We wanted to prove that it would work before we put ourselves on the line financially. Our philosophy is more focused on being a part of the local business fabric in our town. We weren’t starting a business to scale and sell, this is our job, we’re part of a community.

Eventually though, we had larger needs than we couldn’t fund ourselves, so a network of non-profit lenders helped us with equipment loans to scale up. In 2018 we had the opportunity to buy our kitchen and we had enough time in business to approach a bank. So since 2018 we’ve had a fantastic relationship with our bank and our banker. They helped us manage through Covid and continue to help us grow into our new Scoop Shop space.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

We didn’t know anything. Katie is a solid home cook and baker and an incredible researcher. Before starting the business, Katie switched employers to one that owned the local culinary school. She learned everything she could about baking and pastry. After realizing there is an entire world of science involved in ice cream, she enrolled in Penn State’s Ice Cream Short Course at Berkey Creamery. Everyone from Ben & Jerry’s, Jeni’s and Hagen Dazs send people to this class.

After learning everything there is to know about freezing science, professional equipment and ice cream production, Katie went home and started creating. Turns out, there is so much more than a weekend class can teach you. We have tested and failed, revised and reworked more flavors than you can imagine. We are still learning. Everything we do seems to be new, no trodden path, no easy instructions.

We know that scaling past a certain point requires a fundamental change in our product. You just can’t make ice cream like this on a large scale. We went down that path to see what would work for us. It turns out, that it doesn’t.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.leonaspgh.com
• Instagram: @leonasllc
• Facebook: @leonasllc
• Yelp: ABSOLUTELY NOT

Image Credits

Matt Dayak