BROOKINGS For anyone with a sweet tooth, theres a flavorful new dining option available in downtown Brookings to sate it: Scoops & Loops at 404 Main Ave.
Owner Ava Boeve said her business, which opened in late March, has a snack vibe to it and offers all sorts of options including ice cream from South Dakota State University, soft pretzels, milkshakes, chips and cheese, ice cream nachos, sundaes and more.
Wanting to find unique products to offer, Boeve set out to contact local entities. One of the first things to come to mind was SDSU ice cream and a deal was worked out after Boeve reached out to the Dairy Bar on campus.
They were so happy to work with me, she said. I was like, Thats going to fit just right in the community since its I mean, we all love Jackrabbits here. Its SDSU; you cant go wrong.
Boeve is also working with other local businesses, including Cottonwood Coffee on an affogato she described it as an espresso-type brew over top of a couple scoops of ice cream, delicious, and its so good! and Wooden Legs Brewing Co. for a local root beer option.
Scoops & Loops has become so popular that customers have literally devoured Boeves entire food supply on occasion.
Take her ice cream nachos, for example. The businesss top-selling item, Boeve said theyre so popular that, at one point, her supply of chips for the dish sold out in four days time.
It was crazy. We were trying everything else while we were waiting for more to come, she said. We have these little, like, just kind of what are they called? Famous Amos little mini-chocolate chip cookies, so we were like We can use those if you want, but people really wanted these waffle cone chips.
Sensing an opportunity arising from the popularity, Boeve took steps to improve her stores capabilities and so now it can make its own waffle cones and waffle cone chips.
You just take those and you kind of eat it like nachos, but its like a sweet nacho, so its really fun, she said.
The dish comes with three scoops of ice cream and eight to 10 chips, whipped cream and two toppings of your choice. You just take your chips and dip (them) in there and go for it!
Milkshakes are popular as well, alongside the Cookie-dae sundae, which uses cookies-and-cream ice cream. It comes with hot fudge, three scoops of ice cream, whipped cream, more hot fudge and then Oreo crumbles on top.
Boeve said her customers are also keen for soft pretzels and cheese, along with chips and cheese, especially toward the evening hours hours that stretch, on Friday and Saturday nights, into the early morning time of 2:30 a.m.
Shes not forgetting folks who have food limitations, either, offering chocolate and vanilla dairy-free options for them.
Weve had a lot of people asking about that and I didnt realize how many people were dairy-free in this town, Boeve said. I looked into it and there are so many kids and people who just dont have anywhere to have a little treat in Brookings.
Daughter is everything
Getting Scoops & Loops up and running was something of an involved task for Boeve, 23, who was born and grew up in Brookings and graduated from SDSU this past December. Among the factors she weighed was family specifically, her 10-month-old daughter, Maya.
I am looking forward to, first off, being able to hang out with my daughter for most of the day up until her dad gets off work, Boeve said, adding that her husband, Tyson, is majoring in mechanical engineering at SDSU and works at Daktronics. She kind of just gets to hang out with me, and thats all I wanted when I was trying to come up with a business. I was like, What do I want to do? I want my daughter with me because she is everything to me.
It also helps that the building housing Scoops & Loops is owned by her parents, Dan and Victoria Wakeman, especially when it came to pitching the business plan.
It was pretty nice to convince my Dad and be like, Hear me out, what if I did this? Boeve recalled.
Another consideration was a heartfelt one, too: She loves the food industry and considers herself a foodie so much so that she absolutely loves smoothies, If I could make one for every meal, I would! But, she also didnt want to take business away from existing restaurants, especially Cubbys Sports Bar & Grill, where she worked for more than four years.
I just learned a lot about the food service and I really love the atmosphere there but you cant be a server forever, Boeve said, laughing.
Constructive work
Naturally, a lot of effort goes into a new business, including, in Boeves case, hands-on teardown and rebuild work.
This involved removing walls and redoing the floor she said it took a little over a weekend redoing the floor and another weekend to get the walls taken down. They also painted the walls with a Neapolitan theme brown, pink and off-white. In time, Boeve hopes to paint her businesss logo on the wall as well, along with ice cream cones.
Again, we have to wait until Im feeling artsy, she said, laughing. We put a lot of hours in this building. A lot of sweat, blood and tears.
She said her friends from Cubbys played a huge role in helping her with the site preparation for Scoops & Loops. They went hard getting everything done for me. It was wonderful. Theyre the best people ever.
Inspiration
Boeve said she draws a great deal of inspiration from her mother, watching her accomplish many things since Ava was a child including owning multiple businesses (one of which was a maternity clothing store in the current Scoops & Loops building) and becoming a doula who offers services to this day out of an office in the building.
Shes just always had a business, and I have watched her become this brilliant businesswoman who knows how to do everything, Boeve said. Shes working with the state right now to get Medicaid insurance for pregnant ladies to have doulas in their birth, and its just been incredible to watch her.
Boeve continued, So I was like, I want to do something like that, but I dont do that kind of stuff at all. I cant figure that out!
Maybe so, but shes done a fine job of overseeing the successful launch of Scoops & Loops, whose hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and, on Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. Its closed on Sunday.
Everyone has those late-night treats. We want to make sure that we can help satisfy those cravings, Boeve said. We got everything you need. Dont worry about it!
Contact Mondell Keck at [email protected].
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