We were lucky to catch up with Robreauna Ruiz recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Robreauna 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 never in a million years thought i’d open an ice cream shop, but the idea came after creating my hair business Curl Candi. The branding for CurlCandi is candy shop/candyland themed and became one of the biggest reasons my brand became successful so fast. I was on youtube one day trying to learn how to make a funnel cake at home lol and kept seeing rolled ice cream videos, and came across one that caught my eye. Immediately a light bulb went off in my head and the idea wouldn’t leave my mind. A lot of my close guy friends have restaurants and clubs etc, they continously inspire me….so I always wanted to step into the food industry I just didn’t know how and what to do because truthfully I don’t cook LOL and i’m not a huge foodie person. But after brainstorming and doing research on the ice cream business, I figured i’d switch gears and start my own, but ROLLED ICE CREAM instead of standard ice cream. I’m from california so we have rolled ice cream shops all over but in Atlanta they seemed limited and really far out of the city so I got to work, and here we are now.
I called my business partner Chad Dillon one day who is also one of my best friends and owns The Boiler. We talked about the idea, and I asked him if I was crazy for wanting to open an ice cream shop lol he was all for it! I didn’t take it serious as first honestly, until the idea just wouldn’t leave my mind and it began to interest me more and more. I’ve always been into the beauty industry so in no way did I ever think i’d open an ice cream shop but I took the risk and went for it. Chad wanted involvement when he saw how serious I was, so I just asked him to be my business partner for my first location so I could learn the knowledge and gain all the proper resources since he is already a very successful restaurant owner and well known in Atlanta.
We then hired a broker, Maurion Watkins who eventually became a close friend of mine during the year of us finding a location. Me and Maurion went through alot during the hunt for a location, even a car accident while looking for a spot… so it was definitely a very humbling and hard journey to say the least. LOL. I don’t even know how he was so patient with me because It wasn’t easy at all, I was frustrated 24/7 because I got so many No’s. But after a year I got the best location out of all the locations I found and a prime location in Buckhead. So i’m extremley blessed and grateful! It was definitely worth the wait.
Robreauna, 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?
My name is Robreauna Ruiz. I am born and raised in California, the Bay Area to be exact. Throughout my adult life to becoming a successful business owner: I went from being a nursing student, makeup artist, to starting my own lash business as a lash artist, then I became a licensed esthetician, moved to atlanta to become a celebrity lash artist, then started a Curly hair business named Curl Candi during the pandemic and now… I own my very own Ice Cream shop. lol. Talk about a JOURNEY. Sugar Baby Creamery is a Black and Latin owned Ice Cream shop. I come from a family of immigrants, so this concept was big and very personal for me because it will soon create generational wealth in the future for my family, children and grand children. I wanted Sugar Baby Creamery to become the new fun wave for ice cream shops while creating an experience! Our shop’s aesthetic is “Sugar Baby” themed with alot of “sugar daddy quotes” and its very own selfie museum. We were inspired by the Museum of Ice Cream and wanted to create a small everyday version of that, while adding our own twist to it. I also found an artist by the name of Becky Rosa who’s art pieces inspired me as well which is where all of my birkin pieces and mural came from. I really wanted to create a concept that made customers eager to come to my shop so I put my creativity on a much bigger scale aside just ice cream, its an EXPERIENCE the moment you walk in.
The name alone took me awhile to come up with, and initially I wasn’t going to use it, until I thought of ways to brand the name itself with the shop’s design and construction. I just went for it after that and said hey why not? I went to slutty vegan and was completely in awe by Pinky Cole’s branding and marketing inside, down to how they talk to customers. It just inspired me so much. I’m like you know what? THINK BIG. So Sugar Baby became what it is after that and I went for the whole sugar daddy concept, because who doesn’t love a good sugar daddy but for ice cream, haha. Sex sells. We all know that. But I still made sure my shop is aestheticially pleasing and appropriate for children as well. My favorite color is pink, so everything inside is pink pink pink and MORE PINK!
We will be selling Rolled Ice Cream, Milkshakes and Soft Serve, and then will gradually making our way into selling carnival desserts in the spring and adding Boba as well.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I had to learn to stop acting like a KNOW IT ALL, For the first time I had to face the fact that I needed help this time around. As a business owner you think you can handle a huge work load and want to be “miss independent” but I humbly became a teacher during this entire process and I fell in love with the grind. I took the risk of sharing my business with someone who is way more successful than me and became open to learning from him. Although I came up with the idea, I found myself asking my partner 100000 questions a day, and it completed molded me into a better business owner and I learned alot about business partnerships which I never thought i’d do. PARTNERSHIPS ARE IMPORTANT, you get further ahead when you work together and i’m honestly grateful to have one of my bestfriends as a business partner because Chad is hard on me and he makes me work my ass off. He didn’t make it easy either, we stood on his agreement and would push me to get things done. At times I would be like “lets do this, lets do it like that” and he would be like “No, thats not how this works”…so it was alot of learning and unlearning but it was Necessary because I have way more knowledge than before.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
If you know me, you know my mom is the reason behind every business idea I have. I turned my pain into an empire, truthfully. For those that don’t know – My mothers name was Candace, they called her Candy. She passed when I was one, due to gun violence.
My mom’s birthday is April 16, and I got my LLC for Sugar Baby Creamery for her birthday last year in 2021 as a gift to myself and her. I promised myself I would really do this. The craziest outcome of this entire process was noticing the date of my lease agreement contract. I signed my lease with my landlord for our location on Feb 26,2022 which is also her death date anniversary, it brought me to tears seeing that… shes apart of this spirtitually for sure. She was an aspiring hair stylist but unfortunately lost her life and had big plans on opening her own salon and hair brand, which is why I created CurlCandi in her memory. I believe creating a candy themed business drew interest in opening a sweet tooth based business, the story behind both still revolves around her and thats the most beautiful part about it. I turned “Candy” into my business brand’s aesthetic and theme. Its just beautiful. I love it.
Contact Info:
- Website: sugarbabycreamery.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/robreeezy instagram.com/thesugarbabycreamery
- Facebook: facebook.com/sugarbabycreamery
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robreauna-ruiz-75a39b250