Hatcher’s Scoops Finds Sweet Success

Scoops Homemade Ice Cream makes its product on-site, owner Greg Hatcher says. (Emma Mayes)

Greg Hatcher believes that ice cream is a destination. His purchase of Scoops Homemade Ice Cream in Hot Springs in September 2022 and opening of a Scoops in Little Rock this April is a demonstration of that belief.

And so far, the number of visitors to the two locations is bearing him out, said Hatcher, founder and CEO of the Hatcher Agency, an insurance agency based in Little Rock.

Hatcher was a regular customer of Scoops, which was founded in Hot Springs in 2003 by Bill McCrystyn. “It was a must-stop-by place just because it was the best ice cream I’d ever had,” Hatcher said. “I went there all the time.”

Hatcher encouraged McCrystyn to open a second location in Little Rock, but he had no interest in expanding. But a few years ago, McCrystyn offered to sell the ice cream shop to Hatcher and found in him a willing buyer, but told him: “Only one thing matters, and that’s they come for the ice cream.”

Hatcher spent all the profits from Scoops renovating the store and began offering takeout ice cream. He said revenue rose 50% that first year.

In June 2022, Hatcher bought the old Gay Oil Building at 300 S. Broadway and a smaller adjoining building for $1.07 million with plans to renovate the historic building and locate his Hatcher Capital Investments there. He initially thought he’d place a Little Rock Scoops in the adjacent building, but there was no parking out front.

However, across the street at 212 S. Broadway stood the former Pulaski Bank-T-Mobile building, which had parking in front and a drive-through lane. “Sometimes your best plans are accidents,” Hatcher said. So he bought that 3,959-SF building last August, paying $1.3 million.

“We weren’t really planning to put it there, but it was perfect because that’s really twice as big as any ice cream store you’ll ever walk in,” he said. “It’ll hold 75 people comfortably, eating ice cream.”

The Little Rock Scoops is open seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. That’s because “I believe ice cream is a destination,” Hatcher said. “When I’m out of town and I’ve seen a movie or I’ve eaten dinner, I’m always looking for ice cream near me or yogurt near me and they almost all close at 9 o’clock.”

That’s too early for Hatcher, hence the 10 p.m. close time. “We’re never locking our doors till the whole place is clean and if a customer shows up there at 10:05, we’re letting them in.”

Scoops offers Leiva’s Coffee, and the Little Rock location sells breakfast sandwiches and croissants from the Croissanterie of Little Rock, as well as baked goods from Little Rock’s Blue Cake/Honey Pies and the Blackberry Market of North Little Rock.

The drive-through accounts for about 15% or 20% of business at the Little Rock location, Hatcher said.

Hatcher encountered skepticism about the downtown Little Rock location. “A lot of people felt like the store would not make it,” he said. But he was willing to take the risk because first, he wanted to improve the buildings he’d bought, and second, “my one weakness is ice cream. I know if I’m out of town I’ll drive to the ice cream place. So it was a risk, but people do drive there from all over.” The busiest hours, he said, are 7-9 p.m. and the Little Rock location is doing three times the business that the Hot Springs Scoops does.

The Little Rock Scoops employs about 25 and the Hot Springs store another 15.

A member of the Arkansas Insurance Hall of Fame, Hatcher said he’s “going to stick to my insurance job,” but is considering opening other Scoops ice cream shops.

Hatcher said 100% of the profit from Scoops is now going to the Mighty Bluebirds, a nonprofit youth sports organization that he founded.