Henry Gentry has worked at Henry's Homemade Ice Cream for 28 years, where the shop makes over 1,000 flavors annually. They run a pajama-party fundraiser for cancer survivors, sell cheap Hirsch hot dogs, and bake their own waffle cones. Henry's favorite flavor is cinnamon.
Hey y'all, this is Mr. Henry Gentry of Henry's Ice Cream. He's really awesome, he has really great ice cream, and we look forward to getting to know him better.
Good, I'm glad to be here. I'm glad your whole family is here. Does anybody have questions about Henry's Homemade Ice Cream? Oh yes, Amy.
How long have you been working here?
Wow, good question. How long have I been working here? 28 years. That's a long time. That's older than you, I think, isn't it? Yeah, 28 years.
How many different flavors of ice cream do you have?
Wow, good question. How many different flavors of ice cream do we have? Well, over the course of a year, we make over 1,000 flavors. Is that a lot of flavors? Yes. Some ice cream companies only make 31 flavors. Is that a lot of flavors?
Yeah.
Jess, how about you?
Well, I think—
You like working at the ice cream store?
I do. What's your favorite ice cream?
Well, I like all of them, but if I had to pick one, I would pick that cinnamon ice cream.
I would have to agree on that.
You tasted it earlier?
Yeah.
The cinnamon is so great because it can be a Mexican flavor, an American flavor, Taiwanese flavor. It goes also so great on pies and cakes. So it just seems to transcend all the other flavors. That's why I like it. Any questions from the audience? Yes, ma'am. What were you going to ask?
What's been your best marketing effort so far?
Wow, I'm constantly marketing. We are a fearless marketing We have 2 headquarters here in Plano, and it's good to see all the other cities getting involved with Henry's Ice Cream because we can extend our social media programs out to you. We have coming up though the pajama party on June 15th, and we give away a free quart to everyone dressed in their pajamas.
Holy cow!
And what we do is we actually raise money that night for cancer. For the Metroplex. We keep all the money within our Metroplex here, and everybody who's scooping that night is a cancer survivor.
That's a big deal.
We have over 40 scoopers this year, and some of them die during the course of the year, and they don't come back the following year. So it's a happy, and yet it's a sad occasion, but everyone leaves here getting their ice cream and having fun. And there's ice cream, and we bring a lot of awareness to That's a good question. What else?
Do you sell any sort of food besides ice cream?
We sell some food. We sell Hirsch's hot dogs. My friend Gary Hirsch is a butcher, so he makes our hot dogs for us, and we sell them for a dollar. That's it. Everybody has a dollar, right? We sell them so cheap that you come in and get a hot dog, and then guess what? You have money left over for ice cream. Aren't I smart?
Yes?
What type of fun do you have in here? Well, we have a lot of fun because the employees have fun. We know the customers coming in are coming in to have fun. So between the, you know, the chatter and the talking, we kid people. Some of our flavors are funny also at the same time. So it's a unique experience because it's fun. You know, you're buying ice cream, and at the same time we're often baking waffle cones, so the smell is going. There's a lot of visual things in here that are funny also. We have a lot of cow paraphernalia in here. So by using all the senses, we just hope that everyone can They can have fun, and they do.
What's the hardest job?
The hardest job is Windexing.
Same here.
I know. 2 feet high, it's terrible. There's all 2 feet high off the ground, a lot of Windexing. Do you use blue or white? We use blue too. It's important. Hey, well, thank you, Henry, and we look forward to getting to know you and introducing your ice cream to Old Town Keller. You, thank you.
