From national chains to small brands, businesses of all sizes strive to master the concept of local flavor. West Coast ice cream hub Salt & Straw has perfected the formula—capturing not only the culture and feel of each place it expands to, but also creating new ice cream flavors tailored to local ingredients and tastes.
Co-owner Kim Malek opened Salt & Straw with her nephew Tyler as a solo scoop shop in Portland, Oregon. After finding success in their home state, the founders began bringing their signature brand of interesting ice cream flavors to cities in California, Washington, Nevada, and most recently, Florida. But despite operating 25 scoop shops across five states, the chain still feels like a local business. How? No matter where Salt & Straw opens, the team follows the same tenants: keep it local, be a good neighbor, and provide unforgettable hospitality.
Below, Kim takes us behind the scenes of Salt & Straw’s successful 2023 launch in Miami—the company’s first location outside the West Coast.
Keeping it local
Local flavor has been a part of Salt & Straw’s ethos since its founding in 2011. As an early employee at Starbucks in the 1990s, Kim became inspired by Portland’s grassroots support for local enterprises, as well as the potential for businesses to serve as community gathering places.
“I fell in love with just the entrepreneurial spirit of that and this idea of a ‘third place,’” Kim said. “So it’s not your home, it’s not your office—it’s this third place where you can spend time for yourself… And I thought, ‘God, an ice cream shop would be a great way to reflect that. You could run into your neighbors and spend time with friends and family and just meet people.’”
Kim never planned to expand beyond Portland, but when the opportunity arose, she made sure to preserve the local flavor at the heart of the business. Now, whenever Salt & Straw expands, the team works with local makers, farmers, and chefs to create new offerings that speak to the unique flavor of that city. According to its website, Salt & Straw serves at least 36 flavors across its stores on any given day.
Guests have come to expect something special at each location—echoing the original intent behind Salt & Straw’s first scoop shop. “That kind of level of ownership and local collaboration is really important to who we are,” Kim said. “Instead of just exporting our ice cream, we export this ethos of Portland and collaborations.”
A foundation of collaboration
It’s not just the ice cream that gets a local touch. To fulfill its grassroots ethos, Salt & Straw also collaborates with other local businesses and entrepreneurs. For the company’s first storefront in Miami, the team made sure to do their research: They started with a pop-up shop mentality, partnering with well-known local brands like Panther Coffee (one of the first local coffee roasters in Miami) to test the market and promote the scoop shop’s launch.
This tactic left a strong impression on Diandra Lamas, a Miami-based regional manager at Yelp, who oversees a team of community managers (CMs). CMs are Yelp’s experts in local flavor who build lasting relationships with small businesses in their region. “I’m always going to try to find the local ice cream shop, the local tattoo parlor, the local bar, because that’s just what we do intrinsically as community managers [for Yelp],” Diandra said.
Seeing Salt & Straw pay homage to Miami’s small business community made Diandra even more excited to try them, she said: “They know the people that they’re supposed to work with and they know the people who have really built this runway for businesses to come in here and flourish—like these local businesses that really hustled, and they’re working with them. I thought that was amazing.”
Behind the scenes, Kim sought input and advice from leaders in the Miami food scene, such as The Salty Donut founders Amanda Pizarro and Andy Rodriguez and Panther Coffee founders Leticia and Joel Pollock, who introduced Kim to other local makers. These connections helped shape Salt & Straw’s future in the city—as well as its flavors. As of January 2024, Salt & Straw’s Miami menu includes flavors like Panther Coffee Chocolate Tres Leches and The Salty Donut Guava + Cheese (made with glazed brioche donut chunks from the family-run donut shop.)
“It’s so fun to have that network unfold in front of you, and it’s all about those people you get to meet,” Kim said. “Here we are, 12 years into it, and I think the top reason that we’re so invigorated today—as much as we were on day one—is because of those people and relationships. You come across ice cream flavors at Salt & Straw that you might not expect. And so much of it is due to these people we meet in these collaborations and storytelling.”
Creating a ‘third place’ in Miami
Customer service is crucial to fully deliver on Kim’s vision of third places. While local partnerships help bring customers in, Kim said it’s the employees who create the welcoming environment Salt & Straw has become known for—starting with the tasting process, where you can sample every single one of Salt & Straw’s unique flavors.
“The ice cream is only 49% of the experience, and 51% is when you come in and [get what we call] ‘a moment of full face attention,’” Kim said. “When you get to the front of the line at Salt & Straw, we encourage [our team] to spend just a little more time than you might think would be logical with each guest and connect with them in their own way. [It’s about] coming to work and being your best self, not a cookie cutter person.”
Diandra saw this “full face attention” in action at Salt & Straw’s Wynwood location, a Miami neighborhood known for its thriving art scene. “You walk in there, and it smells just delicious, so you naturally want to be there,” Diandra said. “The vibe of it reminds me of something that would make me happy in my childhood. The line could be out the door and you could try six ice creams, and no one in the line is also annoyed, which is an unlikely Miami situation because people are always in a rush.”
Getting customers to love the wait isn’t easy, but Kim uses the popularity of her business to her advantage. “If you stand in line at Salt & Straw, you’ll see people are not on their phones. They’re talking to each other. They’re meeting in line—like people have gotten job offers and wedding proposals in our line,” Kim said. “I just share that because this idea of trying new things that you haven’t had before it gets you talking to each other, it gets people meeting, it gets people excited.”
These lessons come from an episode of Behind the Review, Yelp & Entrepreneur Media’s weekly podcast. Listen below to hear from Kim and Diandra, or visit the episode page to read more, subscribe to the show, and explore other episodes.
Photos from Salt & Straw on Yelp
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