From a daydream in the early days of Sundae Cycle to finally having a place of our own. Here’s how The Parlour came to be – and what we’ve been getting up to behind the scenes.
If you'd asked us a few years ago whether Sundae Cycle would one day have a place of its own, we'd probably have said “we'd love to” without ever really believing it would happen.
The idea of having our own space had been floating around since the early days of Sundae Cycle. It was one of those things we'd talk about from time to time, somewhere we could make our own ice cream, serve it straight to customers and have a proper home for everything we were building. But for a long time, it was very much a one day, maybe kind of dream.
Then, in 2023, a conversation changed everything.
From daydream to actual plans
Our now-landlords, who are also friends of ours, came to us with plans to replace an old, rather dilapidated shed with a brand-new building, and asked whether we'd like first dibs on taking it on.
Suddenly, the thing we'd talked about as though it would probably never happen had the chance to become very real.
We knew straight away that we wanted the space to give us the opportunity to start making our own ice cream. Being able to create a product that is completely ours has been a huge ambition for Sundae Cycle, and having somewhere we could make it and serve it directly to our customers felt like a pretty exciting prospect.
Exactly what the rest of the space would look like? We had absolutely no idea.
The plans have evolved plenty along the way, but gradually The Parlour has become a place where we can bring all the different sides of Sundae Cycle together. Somewhere to make and serve our own ice cream, welcome people in, host celebrations, run parties and experiences and try out all those ideas that have previously had nowhere to live.
A little longer than planned…
If there's one thing we've learnt, it's that these things don't happen overnight.
The plans and conversations started back in 2023, and it's taken a lot longer to get to this point than we ever imagined. There were definitely times when it felt like it might not happen at all, so much so that I think I'd almost convinced myself not to get too excited about it.
And then suddenly…it was happening.
Naturally, it's also happened in the same year that we've had our first baby and decided to move house, because apparently we don't like doing things by halves. 😂
Once we had the space, we decided to take on much of the transformation ourselves. There have been a lot of ideas, a lot of DIY and probably quite a few moments where we've questioned our own decision-making.
Tiling the floor was one of them.
Looking at an empty room and thinking “we can tile that” is apparently very different from actually tiling it. Dave, my amazing dad and I took it on ourselves, although I should probably give the men the majority of the credit here, and completely underestimated quite how much floor there was.
There were stiff knees, bad backs and aching everything by the end of it, but we did it. And seeing the room start to become our space made it worth it.
So, what exactly is The Parlour?
This is probably the question we've been asked the most, and the answer is, a bit of everything we love about Sundae Cycle.
It'll be the home of our ice cream production, giving us the chance to develop our own flavours and finally serve a product that we've created ourselves from start to finish.
But we never wanted it to be just somewhere we make ice cream.
We want The Parlour to be somewhere people can come and enjoy it too. Somewhere to meet a friend for a catch-up and something delicious when the doors are open, somewhere to celebrate birthdays, baby showers and special occasions, somewhere to get stuck into ice cream making and other experiences, and somewhere we can host our own events, workshops and whatever else we dream up along the way.
For a business that has spent years travelling to other people's celebrations, there's something really special about finally having somewhere we can welcome people to us.
And yes, that is every bit as terrifying as it is exciting.
Nearly there…
Right now, we're finally at the stage where it actually looks and feels like The Parlour.
The branding is going up, tables and chairs are moving in and we're working our way through the finishing touches. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, there's a slightly less photogenic mountain of paperwork and everything else that needs to happen before we can officially get lift-off.
After talking about it for so long, seeing it become real is a slightly surreal feeling.
There's still work to do, but we're nearly there, and we genuinely can't wait to show you what we've been creating.
The Parlour is almost ready to open its doors. We hope you'll come and be part of it.