St Louis Magazine / August 2011 / A Q&A with Joy Grdnic, Owner of The Fountain on Locust

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A Q&A with Joy Grdnic, Owner of The Fountain on Locust

Joy Grdnic is a syndicated radio comedienne. She also owns The Fountain on Locust (3037 Locust, 314-535-7800, fountainonlocust.com), a restaurant/ice creamery that SLM’s wordsmiths quite frankly had trouble describing when granting it a 2011 A-List Award last month. Having won our hearts with this nugget (“You think the restaurant business is hard? Try writing a comedy bit every day”), she can be counted on her for a scoop of wisdom, sprinkled with a joke or two. Here’s today’s ration.

Restaurant owners are generally poor marketers, yet this seems to be your strong suit.
It’s lucky I’m forced to be creative at my real job, so dreaming up ideas and events that are fun--opposed to just blatant, hype-y promotions--is easier for me. For example, during the winter, our “Customer Chili of the Week” is interactive and ever-changing—it draws in customers and costs us zero.

And that, in turn, produces more publicity.
Precisely. Things like that and Burlesque Bingo make for great TV and radio hits. . 

I have to ask…
Burlesque Bingo is held once a month, and it is what it sounds like…straight-up bingo sprinkled in with a little not-so-straight-up burlesque. In between bingo rounds, there’s comedy, parody, props, bright shiny objects…and it always sells out.

Along those lines, we also assembled an “Ice Cream Float” float for the local Pride parade…

While other restaurant owners are busy putting out fires, you’re busy thinking about marketing.
The ideas just come to me. Like the day after tax day, 28 CPA’s gathered here to eat ice cream and celebrate. I thought, wow, this is how these guys party after working for 3 months straight? It just amused me, so I called the TV stations and told them about it.

You received a dubious “best” award, too.  
We won a “America’s Best Restroom” award, based mainly on the local votes we got just to champion the underdog. Who would have thought that would get us national exposure and into The Wall Street Journal and USA Today? It was surreal. I actually teared up accepting the award…for best restroom. 
 
Marketing and fun events are one thing, but then you have to follow through, which you do.
And many don’t. That’s why we have a scratch kitchen, some unusual menu items, we make all of our toppings, our whipped cream, and the ice cream we get from Wisconsin [Cedar Crest] is way better than I could ever make. The only thing we don’t make is our ice cream.

How else does Cedar Crest differentiate themselves?
They age their ice cream, holding it at a high temperature for up to 4 days .It’s a type of caramelization that lets the flavors develop. You know how tomorrow’s chili tastes better than today’s? Same type of thing.   

What do you think makes for the perfect ice cream?
It’s not butterfat. Russian ice cream has 56% butterfat, so it’s really smooth, but fat masks flavor; too little butterfat, like in some gelatos, and you have a lot of flavor but no silkiness. There exists an ideal balance of creamy and flavor--most people don’t understand that—and for us, Cedar Crest has that balance.

What’s another misconception?
Most commercial ice creams contain propylene glycol. It prevents ice crystals and helps aid creaminess but it’s also used in car radiators. Yes, that’s what the masses are eating. We felt we had to find a supplier that didn’t use it and we did. I can now taste that stuff and I just don’t want to eat it. That’s part of why I am now an ice cream snob. 

I know you top your sundaes with something other than a maraschino cherry.
That red color is as natural as the green one used for Chicago Dog relish. But we have cherries if you want one. We prefer a homemade orange peel, though—that takes us three weeks to make. It’s purer and it’s our own thing.

How long has Cedar Crest been available here?
When I first started, we had to drive it here—it was like making that run to Kansas City to get Coors beer. Now, it’s shipped here direct.

And The Fountain just won a “best place to get ice cream” award?
That award came from Yelp and the Yelp audience, a group of online commenters who skew younger, and whose preferences may be different from their parents.’ If it was an older crowd, it might have been Ted Drewes at # 1 and we may not have even made the list.    

Is it fair to say you put the ice cream martini on the local map?
You know, ice cream drinks have been around since the Brandy Alexander, so it may be the younger audience who’s saying that. But we were the first ice cream-focused restaurant here to capitalize on its liquor license. I just heard from a guy in Los Angeles who said that The Fountain was setting the national trend for ice cream saloons. Ice cream and alcohol are now trending, I guess, but I’m not about trends. We’re just doing what we set out to do.  

But you’re now pairing ice cream with different alcohols as well.
Some people put the liqueurs in their ice cream; I think they’re better on the ice cream. It’s like vodka…I’d rather infuse real raspberries into my vodka than put in that flavor—chemically--ahead of time. Separate the flavors and it simply tastes better. Limoncello poured over strawberry ice cream is just incredible. 

What was the genesis of The Fountain?
I just thought that someone should do this type of hybrid restaurant here. But not me. And when I first tasted that ice cream up in Wisconsin, I thought that someone should bring it to St. Louis. But not me. But hey, here I am.