Ice Cream Brands » Marble Slab Creamery

Marble Slab Creamery

Marble Slab Creamery is a chain of independently owned and operated franchised stores that specialize in serving ice cream and a variety of other desserts. It is a franchise brand in the portfolio of Next ice cream Brands Inc. There are 391 Marble Slab stores throughout the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and recently Kuwait, Lebanon and Scotland.

History

Marble Slab was founded in Houston by chefs Penn and LaPage in 1983. They were inspired by Steve Herrel of Herrell’s Ice Cream in Boston, who pioneered the mixin approach to ice cream toppings. In 1986, Marble Slab became the first ice cream treatery to use a frozen granite slab to blend mix-in toppings into the ice cream. The frozen granite slab concept has since been licensed to other stores, including sister chain, Maggie Moo's. That same year, Marble Slab was bought by Ronnie Hankamer of Texas, who laid the groundwork for the brand's franchising concept.

In the past few years, Marble Slab has quickly expanded beyond its original southeastern presence and become a fast-growing franchise. In 2007 it was ranked in Entrepreneur Magazine's Franchise 500 , Fastest-Growing Franchises , and America's Top Global Franchises

Products

Marble Slab's ice cream, ice cream cakes and pies, frozen yogurts, smoothies, waffle cones and brownies are made fresh daily at each store. Gourmet ingredients for ice cream and mixins are often imported from other countries, such as for vanilla ice cream beans from Madagascar, cocoa from Holland, and dipping chocolate from Sweden.

Catering

A variety of catering options are also available, bringing the best of Marble Slab Creamery to special events or parties. The most popular option is the Sundae Bar which is designed for medium to large groups. It includes one flavor of ice cream, hot caramel and fudge, as well as up to five mixins. Another catering option is the Portable Slab party which offers four ice cream flavors and five mixins and brings the Marble Slab experience to the event. A third possibility is the Ice Cream Social which includes one homemade ice cream and six mixins. Serving times range from one and a half to two hours and each event includes helium-filled balloons. Not all of these catering options are available at every location and serving choices may vary.