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N DAYS for SPRING!
Well, it doesn’t feel like spring quite yet but it will, and soon I can assure you. Slowly awaking from the doldrums of winter, we experienced some fortunate and some no-so-fortunate circumstances during the month of March. First, the good news…
Our relationship with the University of Pennsylvania continues strong as senior Eric Karlan (’08) wrote a beautiful piece on The Franklin Fountain for the 34th Street Magazine. Eric, a brother at Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, learned about our shop while on a freshman pledge scavenger hunt and has been a loyal ice cream eater ever since. His story graced the cover of the magazine, which was inserted into Penn’s weekly newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian, which just so happened to feature a huge photograph on the cover of Eric serving a Root Beer float at the Sophomore Skimmer earlier that week. That’s what you call a double scoop! No doubt many Penn men will be bringing their lady friends down to The Fountain for a “college ice”* when the weather warms up.
Also, on the sunny side, the new {old} Root Beer keg is plumbed in! We’re serving our own concoction of herbs, barks, sugars and other stuff on draught and calling it “Poor Richard’s Root Beer.” For those who don’t know the story, Charles E. Hires invented root beer in this very neighborhood of Philadelphia in the 1870s. Wikipedia has a good version of the story if you search Hires.
And, of course, Franklin’s original shop where Poor Richard’s was printed was located directly across the street from The Fountain {see plaque where the El station is currently}. Voila! Look for an article on root beer in STYLE magazine later this spring.
One Friday night, brother Eric was moving the large metal case full of candy molds in the basement. Unexpectedly, the weight shifted and in a split second he was pinned underneath of 1,000 lbs of 19th century cast iron confectionery molds. Luckily, the way it fell, his knees took the blow and he was able to reach for his cellular phone to call the shop. 
Jeff and Ryan bounded down the stairs to the rescue, relieving the pressure until the ambulance arrived. Over at the Jefferson trauma ward, Eric was walking within an hour and we all breathed a sigh of relief. He escaped with a good-looking scar and a story. Now when customers ask why we decided not to make clear toys for Easter this year, we tell them “the pressure was too great.”
On a personal note, our 26 year-old cousin Seth tragically passed away last summer. 
Seth was working for the American Red Cross and his family has organized a blood drive in his honor. The Berley family will be traveling to Wilmington, North Carolina in a few weeks to help out with the drive and give blood in his hometown. Anyone interested in participating can give blood at any Red Cross sponsored site in your locale during April. Email SethMattsonBloodDrive@yahoo.com afterwards and your donation will be credited in Seth’s honor.
If you visit the Fountain and you don’t see Ryan or Eric working the counter, it’s because we’re feverishly working backstage preparing for the busiest season yet! We’ve hired and are training three new staff members: Max, Jenkins and Ashley, who bring film, song and instrumental talents to the stage along with stellar soda-jerking stuff. In the ice cream room, Eric has hired Lawrence, a man of deep intelligence, world experience and a critical palate to help out making the ice cream this year. We’re also improving our equipment, including a new blast freezer and a walk-in {more like crawl-into our 19th century cellar} freezer to handle larger capacities. We're also continuing to improve our product sourcing & offerings for an even better customer experience.
Coming in April…
Jeff’s ideal for Spring:
“Le Paix” which is a peaceful medley of our new Honey-Rose Ice Cream floated in a Violet-Lavender-Berry soda, garnished with sweet, whipped cream and a quartered strawberry.
Old-fashioned paper straws made by the same company since 1888!
If you would like to be removed from our letter list, please email info@franklinfountain.com to do so.
Philadelphia, February 1908Warm winter wishes from The Franklin Fountain! Buckled down here in mid-February, we’ve got a lot to report in the past two months in life and business. New Years arrived without celebration, except for those customers who realized the Fountain is now open on weekends (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) in the Winter. We will return to a 7-day schedule sometime in March… Early in the New Year, the world lost a great man in Dick Warren (1935-2008). Dick was a mentor of ours in the ice cream business, a fellow collector of ice cream ephemera and a role model in life. Please see the eulogy [right].
By month’s end, we prepared the store to run under the capable hands of the crew and embarked for ten days on our annual Old Time Soda Fountain and Confectionery tour. First stop was the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg where the boys tread the early 1900s Moravian Tile Floors in search of local scenes. There we saw the Letitia St. House, a milkmaid and two spectacular and spectacled Franklin mosaics. Then onto the Midwest! went the cry, taking aim at Zaharako’s in Columbus, Indiana. In the last two years, this gloriouis soda fountain from 1899 was rescued by a local businessman, Tony Morbeck, and is being restored to the hilt. Ryan and Eric visited to see the progress in all of its deconstructed glory. Quarter-sawn oak paneling was being refinished, tin ceilings patched, gaslights re-gilded and stained glass cleaned. A very capable crew was onsite the day we visited, meticulously working towards a 2009 re-opening. We are truly inspired by the attention to detail and resources Tony has allocated for Zaharako’s and look forward to assisting with its restoration. Gentleman Morbeck truly deserves a “huzzah” for his efforts! 
Next was the sparkling Schimpff’s Confectionery in Jeffersonville, Indiana where, since 1871, the Schimpff family has been making beautiful candies. Warren and Jill Schimpff graciously gave their full attention all afternoon to us, touring us around their soda fountain and candy museum … an absolute visual cacophony of confectionery. Ryan and Eric were overwhelmed by their stunning collection of candy advertising and antique hard candy machines, many of which still in are in service. There is a candy-making demonstration area that was drawing passersby from the street the week before Valentine’s Day, blazing with red hot hearts. We traded secrets on Clear Toy molding, sniffed the back room chocolate operations and sympathized with the daily trials of a labor-intensive high volume business. These folks have passion and it shows…keep it up! Many other stops peppered our trip including another stop at Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl (Zanesville, OH), the only ice cream shop the Berley Brothers salivate over as hot roasted cashews and redskin peanuts emerge from the ovens to coat scrumptious sundaes. Antique shopping in Ohio yielded a van full of old wire ice cream tables for use at the Fountain (we don’t buy new ones) and a hard candy batch roller to continue our journey into the world of the sugar arts. Zingerman’s Deli and Bakery in Ann Arbor, Michigan was a must-see as they literally wrote the book on customer service that Eric had devoured this past year. We were very well received by founder Ari and the other owners of this local institution and were encouraged by their focused, organic approach to growth over the past 25 years. 
Check out www.zingermans.com to learn more about this amazing company! Rounding the trip out was the usual mix of art and architecture via the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn and the Detriot Institute of the Arts reminded us that so many great things begin and end with artists.
Back in the City of Brotherly Love, we are working towards exciting internal improvements at The Fountain. A new, old-style water fountain was just plumbed in on the Letitia St sidewalk to service the throngs of thirsty ice cream eaters in the summer. Made by Murdock of Ohio since 1853, it is an original design from the early 1900s and a refreshing example of American craftsmanship in bronze and iron. A vintage Hires Root Beer barrel from the 1930s will shortly dispense our home-made root beer recipe in tall chilled mugs, “on draught “ as it were. New systems, sundaes and soda clerks will signal the start of spring…stay tuned!
If you would like to be removed from our letter list, please email info@franklinfountain.com to do so.
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Jeff and Ryan bounded down the stairs to the rescue, relieving the pressure until the ambulance arrived. Over at the Jefferson trauma ward, Eric was walking within an hour and we all breathed a sigh of relief. He escaped with a good-looking scar and a story. Now when customers ask why we decided not to make clear toys for Easter this year, we tell them “the pressure was too great.”
Seth was working for the American Red Cross and his family has organized a blood drive in his honor. The Berley family will be traveling to Wilmington, North Carolina in a few weeks to help out with the drive and give blood in his hometown. Anyone interested in participating can give blood at any Red Cross sponsored site in your locale during April. Email SethMattsonBloodDrive@yahoo.com afterwards and your donation will be credited in Seth’s honor.
