Snowballs, south La. go together like heat in June

As sticky summer months linger on the front side of June, a rainbow of an industry that aims to cool down the masses is in peak form. Throughout Houma, snowball stands are up and running, their windows open to those who crave the colorful ice.

The Tri-Parish Times visited five of the area’s snowball stands last week in an attempt to get a glimpse of the business. The consensus among the stands’ owners as far as maintaining profitable retail is pray for heat, keep sharp blades in the machine, focus on treating the ice consistently and keep a personable relationship with the customer.

And it doesn’t hurt to stock up on nectar cream, the most-popular syrup in the area.

It would be remiss to try to chronicle the Houma snowball scene without first mentioning the mother of all sweet ice, Mom’s Sno-Balls. After 25 years of operation, the Mom’s umbrella directly includes three Houma stands, and that’s without mentioning the enterprise of one of Mom’s former managers.

“We’ve grown, and we’ve brought snowballs to a different level in Terrebonne Parish,” Mom’s co-owner Richard Hebert said, while standing next to his wife, Christine. “She’s the godmother of snowballs, and I’m the godfather.”

The Heberts opened their first snowball stand in 1986, after Richard Hebert retired from work overseas. Now, they are the hub of snowball operations in Houma, a regional distributor with 22 employees and two mobile units.

Two of their daughters own separate locations, Mom’s Too, just outside the tunnel in east Houma, and Summerfield Treats, and Hebert said the family is eyeing a new spot on the west side of the Intracoastal.

Richelle Bergeron, who was 13 when her parents opened the first version of Mom’s across from Terrebonne High School, is still entrenched in the snow-cone business and said she implemented a lot of their lessons into her own stand in Summerfield when she opened it seven years ago.

“We have a lot of secrets,” Bergeron said, glancing over her shoulder at her snowball trailer. “As far as our recipes, that comes all from my mom and dad. As far as how to make the ice, how to store the ice, what temperature the ice is supposed to be – all that was taught to me. How much extract and how much sugar. They taught me everything I know.”

Brooke Carrere spent 12 years under the Hebert tutelage before she decided to branch off and become independent. Now, five years after she first began managing her own stand on West Main Street, she is considering selling franchise rights in Houston.

Mom’s impact on Brooke’s Sno-World is immediately apparent, from the wrap-around drive-through to the litany of food items on the menu to the window being open in the wintertime.

Carrere said she spent more than $100,000 to open her stand, but she feels it was a worthwhile investment that will keep her busy for a long time.

“You can have a good living with this business,” she said. “It’s a business that’s here to stay. Usually, if you’re in it and you’re doing what you love to do, you’re not going to close down.

“They have a lot of stands that open and close. It’s just people that get into it and don’t know the full concept of it. But if you’re in it and you know what this is and it’s what you like to do, you’ll be here forever.”

Just down the street from Brooke’s is Kajun Koolers, an epitome of small-town America owned by Bobby and Judy Olivier. A secret place hidden in a bustling community, it is hardly existent to the inattentive, yet the stand has an alluring, down-home characteristic that endears itself to the familiar.

Without witnessing it in person, it would be hard to believe the sweet ice was served out of the shack-of-a-stand hidden among several trees, but once a witness, it’s just as hard not to return for a second helping.

“[Opening this stand] is the biggest boo-boo I ever made in my life,” Bobby Olivier said. “This is the biggest mess-up I’ve ever done in my life. Because it’s putting me back to work.

“We got so busy over here, that I had to [build a drive-through] and add three more machines in here.”

In order to keep up with business, stand owners must staff up. Brooke’s keeps 12 employees on payroll and Kajun Koolers has 13. Most of the area’s employees are in high school or college and work, in part, because of the job’s perks.

“I like working here because I love snowballs,” said Margo Olivier, who has worked at Kajun Koolers for four years. “Snowballs make people happy and happiness makes the world go round.”

Kajun Koolers, like Summerfield Treats, is typically open from March until September. In Thibodaux, Ne’s Snowball, owned by Lori Falgout and managed by her daughter Krissy LeCompte, is also a warm-weather venture.

“You’ve got to treat people like you want to be treated and serve stuff like you’d want to be served,” LeCompte, 24, said of running a successful stand. “Our snowballs, we try to put a lot of juice in it because I don’t want a snowball that is dry, so I don’t want to give you one like that.”

Apt employees can have a positive impact on the business in many ways, as exemplified by the way Mom’s teaches its employees to keep the pour top on each syrup bottle facing the label, which makes for quicker identification and application.

But the keystone secret to success for Houma stands is the sweltering summertime companion, humidity. Make no mistake about it, Hebert and the Oliviers said, weather drives shaved-ice commerce and it takes only one step outside the house in the morning to gauge a day’s business prospects.

“If you walk outside in the morning and have a little humidity here,” Bobby Olivier said, pointing to his armpit, “you know it’s going to be a good day.”

Poor weather during the summer season can deter profit, but the world economy, with a $4 increase in the price of sugar over the last year, is another assailant on the industry. Owners are now tasked with balancing prices.

“I have to deal with it,” Bergeron said. “I’m not trying to charge too much for this, but it is a lot of work, and I do have to make a profit. I’m only going by what my wholesalers give me. … I feel bad that we do have to raise the price sometimes, but it’s all because of the wholesale price.”

For the most part, the profits gained from snowball sales serve as supplemental income for the owners’ other businesses or retirement checks. Bergeron, whose husband is a pharmacist, said she uses the proceeds as tuition payments, with one child at Vandebilt Catholic and the other in college.

But that doesn’t mean that Summerfield Treats will end post-graduation. “We’re in it until there is no more us,” Bergeron said.

An escalating new snowball stand essential is lagniappe, the extra edible treats that can either keep business churning in the cold months or beckon an older demographic to treat their youngsters.

Kajun Koolers boasts the best stand-served nachos, made absolute with a topping of Hormel chili; Brooke’s has a menu of food items that overwhelms its frosty treats and stretches across the face of the building; Mom’s claims the best soft-serve ice cream, with two $14,000 hydraulic machines to do the churning, and Ne’s began selling oyster, shrimp and catfish po-boys this year.

“This is our first year doing po-boys, so we’re hoping that with more food items we’ll be able to stay open year-round,” LeCompte said. “We try, but if we’re not making enough to pay payroll and bills, then we shut it down.”

Somewhere along the line, selling syrupy ice evolved from merely providing a cold treat to an effort to become a one-stop shop. At one of the area’s stands, patrons can purchase a couple of meat pies for dinner, frosty treats for the children and a daiquiri for the adults, all without leaving the air-conditioned comfort of the car.

It seems to be an effort to reduce humidity’s clasp on the industry and keep the window open through January and February, but the food is just an added dimension, a “calling card,” as Bobby Olivier described it. The ultimate goal is to attract the customers and turn a profit with snowballs, he said.

The consensus was that food doesn’t turn a profit, but that doesn’t stop the stands from stocking it. Mom’s spent $60,000 through U.S. Foodservice last month, Hebert said, an indication that the snowball stand has outgrown stereotypes as a petty business. The payments don’t include money shelled out for flavoring, labor or overhead costs.

“It’s our way of giving back,” Hebert said of stocking food products. “If you come and want a snowball, and you’re a little bit hungry, you ain’t got to come here and then go over there. We don’t make any money on food. We can’t compete in the food business.

“This is probably the hardest job that I’ve ever had to keep this thing together and running. We’re fooling with nickels and dimes, a dollar here and a dollar there.”