A soft serve machine for Rosefinch Mercantile

We all scream for ice cream

Hi all! I promise a proper update will be coming soon! We’ve got lots of great things to share, including the fact that our floors are being installed this week, finally! I know we’ve heard that before, but this time the tiles have actually arrived in the province. But first: a quick plea for help.

There have been a lot of times during the process of buying and renovating this building that someone has suggested to us that we do a crowdfunding campaign. I've always resisted it, because a lot of the work has been uncertain and open-ended, and we didn't really have anything to offer in exchange for funds.

But as we are in our last stretch of opening up as a grocery store, we surveyed the community to see what they are most hoping to see in this space. A sweet and common answer was that people really want to be able to come get an ice cream cone here again.

This is such a lovely thing to picture, and we want to make that happen.

The bad news: Haritha’s repetitive strain injury means he can't scoop hard ice cream.

The good news: This building came with a soft serve machine.

The medium news: Like a lot of things in this space, it's going to need some love to get back up and running. Specifically, $3890 worth of love.

It’s a big number! But even a used commercial soft serve machine is more than $10,000. And while the one we have is only a few years younger than Haritha, we are confident it will last us a good long while it is refurbished. We just sadly don't have this money to spare right now. Not with everything else we are working on getting finished in the next few weeks and months.

So we are pre-selling cones and cups of soft serve ice cream. You can buy one for yourself or for a stranger!

If you think you will ever be in this space — either right after we open or sometime down the line — we will send you a gift certificate you can redeem when you are here.

If you don't think you'll ever be in this space, you can still support! We will keep track of how many servings of ice cream have been sold, and give them out to the community in a fun Free Ice Cream Day after we open.

(Note: Feel free to set the "Indiegogo Tip" to $0! It's wild to me that they are proposing a $9 tip on a $2 perk! Especially when they already take a bunch of fees!)

The people subscribed to this newsletter have lived through all the highs and lows with us as we've navigated all of this wild adventure. We appreciate you all so much!! Thank you for the commiserating and the cheerleading, and thanks for reading all of this and considering pitching in for some ice cream.

Here is the FAQ I pulled together! If you are wondering something not covered here, feel free to ask in the comments!

1. What needs to be done to repair the machine?

   The machine is 33 years old. The small compressor that chills the mix to keep it from spoiling is not pumping, so that needs to be replaced. The second circuit that actually freezes it into ice cream runs but has leaked all its refrigerant. It also needs to be updated, because the refrigerant it used to use has since been outlawed.

2. What if the machine breaks again?

   Once the store is open and bringing in money, we will be able to set aside funds for upkeep and repairs for all of the appliances, and the building itself! That said, we expect the machine to do well once it is refurbished. These older appliances tend to last longer than newer ones!

3. What if you raise more than you need?

   We have so much work we'd like to do on this building! If people want to keep pre-buying ice cream cones to help us grow a pool of money to draw from to do that work, that would be much appreciated!

4. What if you raise less than you need?

   We are determined to have a soft serve machine for this store eventually. If we don't raise enough money with this campaign, we'll keep saving it up from business revenue.

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p.s. Thank you so much for reading!