This is a story about ice cream. About small-batch, organic ice cream in many delectable flavors—whiskey butterscotch and lavender honeycomb, chocolate cherry and crème brûlée.
The case changes with whatever the farmers markets are selling.
But as I sat with sisters Leandra Beaver and Jazmin Hooijer at their ice cream cocktail bar, it occurred to me that the deep story—the story within the story—is the power of sisterhood. With Nimble & Finn’s as just one pearl of its potential. If only it can be harnessed…
We sat in their charming ice cream parlor in Santa Rosa. The charm of their Guerneville location is ready-made: Its scooping station sits on the business floor of a small, squat, fortress-like bank, replete with doric columns and a yawning black vault (in which to whisper secrets).
The charm of their Santa Rosa location, however, is built—a pandemic project. The sisters were laughingly modest about their interior design; they spoke of raiding flea markets and Facebook Marketplace. But somehow a hodgepodge has come together into the prettiest rooms in ice cream. Its browns and oranges give it a vaguely ’70s style. It reminds me of the hipper spots in Los Angeles.
Expansion onto a much bigger floorspace in Santa Rosa (and, likely, rent) inspired their creation of a menu of ice cream cocktails—and the best gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches I have ever tasted. For an unconventional date night, I recommend a Strawberry Letter (Champagne, elderflower, strawberry sorbet) or a Black Velvet (Moonlight Brewing’s Death & Taxes ale, chocolate cherry ice cream and burnt marshmallow fluff). One may pair it with a Say Cheese. The pull of its seven-cheese blend can be used for a Lady and the Tramp moment of romance.
As I ate my five-mini-scoop sampler (plated as a daisy), I listened to Beaver and Hooijer talk about all they had accomplished together—with their growing team and partnerships: the graduation from a pushcart to a first location, the flavor recipes r&d, the ice cream cakes, the sandwiches and choco-tacos picked up along the way, the gold medals (at the Sonoma County Harvest Fair).
I listened; perhaps “eavesdropped” is more the word. And I was well content to hear the easy, laughing, bantering, busy talk of happy sisters.
Given the quality of their product, the sisters could well afford to be precious about it. Pretentious, even. The loving energy of their sisterhood won’t admit to that. And the clientele they attract, lined up for free samples, had a wholesome, post-soccer-practice vibe. Hot and tired folk receiving their sweet desserts. Children of all ages with happy faces.
Both women are mothers, and the brand wears their children’s nicknames. What they have built is a family concern in the old sense—two people who knew one another before they knew anything else, dividing the labor without negotiating it, absorbing each other’s bad days at no billable cost. That trust is the cheapest capital there is, and no investor can put it up.
It is also, quietly, how much of this county actually stands. We have no word for it: an enterprise that is also a household.
Learn more: Online at nimbleandfinns.com, on socials at @nimbleandfinns. Nimble and Finn’s, 16290 Main St., Guerneville, and 123 4th St., Santa Rosa. Big ups to my little sister, Illy, champion scooper.
