Cold Storage: The Life and Death of Tom Carvel
Tom Carvel — ice cream king, business tycoon, the man who brought us Fudgie the Whale. His voice was one that could sink a thousand ships, yet his was the voice of Carvel. “Who better to sell my ice cream than me?” he reasoned. And he was right. In the 1970s and ‘80s you’d hear him calling out “Buy one, get one free!” deals during commercial breaks. It was precisely that lack of Madison Avenue polish that made you believe Carvel was kindly, grandfatherly, a regular guy who just happened to make a lotta dough selling soft-serve ice cream. But all he really wanted was to make a kid smile. And you’d be wrong. Because what began as the quintessential American story — a Greek immigrant uses his ingenuity to create an empire — ended in disaster that may have resulted in Carvel’s death. It definitely resulted in litigation over his estate where the ones who benefitted most were the lawyers. So how did something as innocent as selling ice cream turn so tragic? How could a tyrant create Cookie Puss? And does anyone really know who anyone is? “Cold Storage” is the investigative podcast that answers these questions — and brings up plenty more — in its search to discover who Tom Carvel was. Along the way we’ll learn why the invention of soft-serve ice cream was up there with the invention of the light bulb, how Carvel treated many of his franchisees like cash cows, and why a sure-fire way to success in business lies not only in your smarts but in your golf handicap. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
If you were going to write a screenplay about an American Dream turned American Tragedy, it would be the story of Tom Carvel. Legend has it that on a hot Memorial Day in 1934, his ice cream truck got a flat tire and his profits began to melt. But the locals of Yonkers, NY saved his career by eating up the residuals. Carvel had his eureka moment: Start a business selling soft-serve ice cream. Whether this tale was true or not, Carve...
Those of you who lived up and down the East Coast but especially in NY and NJ and are of a certain age remember Carvel ice cream shops as if there was on every corner. Now where can you find one? As it turns out, at one point Carvel stores, like those who patronized them, largely ditched the cities for strip malls in the suburbs, leaving behind the glass-front shops that had twirling cones on the roof. Now that was ice cream!
So wha...
This week we'll delve into the following:
- The 19th-century French wine industry was almost destroyed by an American bug, leading Greece to bail them out with raisins until Greece went bankrupt--with the Carvels forced to leave for America.
- Prohibition turned ice cream from a sweet treat to a booming empire as people needed their sugar fix--breweries like Anheuser-Busch and Yuengling began to sell rocky road instead of beer.
- By the...
This week we'll delve into the following:
- The inside story on why soldiers needed ice cream to keep going during WWII--the U.S. Navy spent $1 million converting a barge into a floating ice cream factory that made 10 gallons of ice cream every seven minutes.
- During the war, Tom Carvel was selling ice cream at Ft. Bragg and according to Carvel lore learning the freezer business--but it was his brother Bruce who was developing the ...
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informati...
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