Find out how Ben & Jerry’s stands out in Palm Springs
Special guest today on Reservations… Sam Bae from Ben &Jerry’s – Palm Springs…

Ben & Jerry’s stands out in Palm Springs:

Jeff Harrison [00:01]: Hey, welcome to reservations is Jeff Harrison and behind the camera. That’s Andrew Mccauley. Today I am here with Sam Bae of guests were Ben and Jerry’s. Hey, welcome, Sam.

Sam Bae [00:12]: Thank you.

Jeff Harrison [00:13]: Hey, let’s step outside here. Sam is our guest and Sam. First of all, thank you for joining us.

Sam Bae [00:19]: Thank you for having me.

Jeff Harrison [00:22]: Hey Sam, tell us a little bit about you and your business and really kind of how long you’ve been in palm springs with Ben and Jerry’s

Sam Bae [00:27]: Well I’ve been here for about 15 years now. You know, back in the days when we first opened up, the palm spring wasn’t, it wasn’t really thriving or just about a couple of few years after we opened up the recession hit and all the housing market crashed and everything, but we hung in there for so many years and stuff like that and you know, things are looking pretty good right now that, you know, Palm Spring has definitely turned around a bit. And you know, that’s just been here for 15 years now, you know, we’re doing pretty decent so far.

Jeff Harrison [01:06]: So we have you know, when somebody is in business, as long as you, Sam, I mean there are absolute ebbs and flows in the economic cycle that you have. No, you didn’t have no control over. But in that, and this is one of the things we want to share with it at reservations is somebody who’s been in business as long as Sam has, they can weather the ups and downs and still come out of it.

And Sam, that’s a hats off to you after 15 years. And Hey, I know living in the desert for the last 20, we’ve seen some flat spots. So congratulations. Hey Sam, do me a favor, tell us a little bit about, hey, what’s something that you, Ben and Jerry’s you do that not a lot of people know about that you’d like to share?

Sam Bae [01:43]: Was the first of all that Ben and Jerry’s is one of those ice cream companies that really, really cares about what people eat. See, like all their ingredients are fair trade certified and none GMO natural and stuff like that.

I mean, you know, you walk up and down the street and you walk into any of these ice cream shops out here, they all use artificial stuff like artificial colors, artificial flavors, and none of these are none GMO and stuff like that. So Ben and Jerry were founded on the concept that, you know, we’re going to go in and use one of the best step that is available for the customers instead of like trying to make that money as much money as possible.

They’re actually the company that gives back to the community and what they, you know, they really, really cared about what people eat. So that’s basically what the main difference between Ben and Jerry’s and other. So basically I always say there’s always two different. There are two different ice cream companies out there. One is Ben and Jerry’s, the other one is all the others.

Jeff Harrison [02:50]: Something that when we first met you talked about that a lot of people don’t know that you offer this kind of service. What is that?

Sam Bae [01:43]: Well, we do an op, you know, we do a catering jobs for the birthday party, staff meetings, weddings and you know, grand openings or open houses or whatever that might be. Not only we sell ice creams at the shop, but we actually bring a mini scoop shop to your site if you’re having a party or anything like that. We’ll actually scoop ice cream. It was the full service catering, know a service that we offer. So basically we’ll bring a mini scoop shop to your site and now scoop ice cream in the cups or cones or doSundae barss and at a really, really reasonable prices.

Jeff Harrison [03:30]: Now Sam with that and I know you have a big heart with the times we’ve met. We know that Ben & Jerry’s stands out in Palm Springs, Do you do anything that helped help local charities that are here?  Do you ever get involved in that?

Sam Bae [03:38]: Oh yeah. I mean every year we donate to many, many different you know, the little groups and different nonprofit organizations. I mean, especially on our free cone day, every year, all the Ben and Jerry’s in the world that we have what we call free cone day at our shop. What we do is we donate our money to a certain, you know, palm springs mounted, police search and rescue. They are the one who goes up to all the hiking areas out here. They rescue all of this people who get stranded up there and we donate. We’ve been donating to them for last probably about 10 to 12 years or so. And this year alone we’ve probably scooped out somewhere on like 7,000 scoops of free ice cream on the free cone day alone. Not only that, I mean, you know, we try to go in and help out, you know, a lot of the small groups out here, as a matter of fact like July fourth, I am going to be out there donating for the Food Samaritan, the desert. so, you know, we’re going to go in and help them, you know, raise money and stuff like that. But, you know, we have the palm springs animal shelters. We have helped many, many different variety. I mean, of course, I cannot help every single person who asked me to help them because you know, we have a certain amount of budget and you know, we can only do so much, but we try to do as much as we can to help as many little groups as possible.

Jeff Harrison [05:00]: Sam, I have one final question. You know, for somebody who’s been in business for 15 years, there has to be something that you’ve done over that time to help you be successful because this show is about helping other restaurants and other businesses quite frankly understand, hey, what are the, what are these strategies or tactics that somebody uses to be successful or timing? I know that’s a pretty broad question, but could you kind of put your finger on one thing and say, hey, this is, this is probably one of those things that are the most important over time to keep me involved. Whether it’s giving back to charity, making you know, good relationships, that kind of thing. What do you think?

Sam Bae [05:32]: Well, my thing is that I’m always, I always try to be. I mean, a customer service really, really is my priority. I mean, you know, customer service, I mean, like, no matter where I go, where I shop, I mean customer, if they offer, you know, offer me a great customer service, I’m impressed by it. So we try to, you know, do as much as we can to offer amazing, amazing customer service and trying to be as honest as possible to a customer and instead of trying to make that few dollars here and there by like cheating people or I mean, you know what I mean, not being honest with them, but honesty goes a long way in my personal opinion. So basically, you know, that’s just what it comes down to. I think that’s great.

Jeff Harrison [06:12]: Well, Sam, first of all, thank you for joining the state. Tell, tell those people watching, where can they come to see you and Ben and Jerry’s instead of just saying, hey, we’re in palm springs. Tell us where you’re located in. You know, if you have some kind of special offer or if there happened to be watching it and they’re interested in getting a little scoop of ice cream, tell us what we got to do.

Sam Bae [06:29]: Sure. Yeah. I mean, we’re in downtown palm spring, right in the middle of it where across the diagonally across the street from the Starbucks in downtown palm spring. And, you know, I mean, we have a couple of blue umbrella is out there. You cannot miss it. And you know, I think we’re offering a 20 percent discount for all the facebook, patrons here in palm spring area right now. So just come on and, you know, and if you are not sure about somewhat of our flavors, we offer an amazing amount of samples. Believe it or now we go through over 10,000 samples sticks a month. I mean, so we want to go ahead and let you guys experience what Ben and Jerry’s is all about. And if you don’t like some of the flavors, you don’t have to buy anything. But I do want you to at least come in and give us a try and, you know, experience some of these different kinds of super-premium ice cream.

Jeff Harrison [07:19]: Well, you know, Sam, it, you didn’t say this, but having a conference, a couple of conversations with you and hearing you today, part of your success it sounds like, is you’re not afraid to give. You’re not afraid whether it’s samples or advice or customer service that goes along ways. Gang, when you’re running a business of any kind is how much you give back because it’s always one of those things. It’s like when anything, you know when you help somebody else out, what do they want to do? They want to help you out. A lot of times we see it going the other way. We want to take something and then wonder why we’re not getting back. And Sam, I think you’re the epitome of someone who gives and then receive things because of the effort. And I want to thank you and also thank you for joining us today on, on reservations.

Sam Bae [08:03]: Thank you so much.

Jeff Harrison [08:04]: Any questions there, Andrew? No questions today. Hey, I want to thank everybody for joining us. We’ll see you again on. I’ll be. I’ll be away tomorrow, but Andrew, Andrew will be on Thursday. He’ll be meeting at Peabody with Debbie Alexander, so make sure to see that she’s been in business since 1992 and she’s owned that business since 1994. I bet she has some tricks of the trade. We’re also going to swing a little early and she’s going to feed us breakfast. We’ll have a little bit of a taste review on that, so catch us on Thursday. We’ll be back again then. Thanks so much.

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