PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Two Black-owned businesses have teamed up to offer another ice cream option along the Delaware River this summer.
Lokal Artisan Foods Group owner Charisse McGill, founder of French Toast Bites, is now selling French Toast Bites Artisan Gelato at her Spruce Street Harbor and Cherry Street Pier food stands. The partnership is with Galen Thomas, owner of Cloud Cups gelato and sorbet shop.
“We released the gelato at the top of the month, right in time for National Ice Cream Month, and I didn’t know what to expect,” said McGill. “The food bloggers in this town went nuts over it. Our highest sales came the next day after it was released.”
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McGill, who was the first Black female vendor at both establishments, said minority businesses, in particular, have to be innovative.
“When you think about Black businesses, we don’t have the resources to do it on our own,” she said. “We don’t have the capital. We don’t have the manpower. So I found a lot of magic with partnerships, especially Philadelphia-based partnerships.”
This is McGill’s third food partnership. The first was a beer collaboration with Yards, and the second was a French Toast Bites coffee combination with Bean2Bean Coffee Company.
“We have coffee customers now who only get coffee, so it exposes you,” she explained. “I have had to partner and pivot my way through the pandemic. I didn't have a choice, and it worked.”
Thomas hopes the collaboration will help expand his brand as well. He said Cloud Cups sells upward of 80 flavors of gelato and sorbet out of their commissary kitchen in Kensington, but he aims to open a storefront soon.
“Eventually we’ll have somewhere where people can visit every day and be able to taste our flavors,” he added.
McGill’s customers can get a double helping of toastiness — based on their feedback, they can soon order bites as a topping to the French toast gelato starting next week.
For more on French Toast Bites and Cloud Cups, listen to the KYW Newsradio original podcast What’s Cooking on the Audacy app or in the audio player below: