Donned in a black t-shirt and jeans, Karin Sellers proudly digs into a tub of strawberry ice cream as she stands behind the counter of Here’s the Scoop!, an ice-cream parlor she opened on Georgia Avenue this past summer. The shop, she says, is her small part in helping to restore community and love to a once vibrant neighborhood that’s fallen on hard times.
From the looks on her customers’ faces, she’s been very successful. She carries on small talk with one as she creates his frozen treat. Smiling, the man strolls out of the store, looking down at his milkshake and container of bread pudding.
Sellers is smiling too, but possibly for a different reason. Maybe it’s because she has a customer on a quiet Monday afternoon, or it could be because serving up ice cream to the Pleasant Plains community is a dream 15 years in the making.
“I was thinking that it was something that was needed on Georgia Avenue because of the way the community was at that time,” says Sellers . “We didn’t have many family-friendly, enjoyable destinations.”
Even without culinary experience, Sellers is no stranger to an entrepreneurial mindset. Her parents owned the building where Here’s The Scoop! resides, and used to operate a laundromat out of the location in the 1980s. They later allowed Sellers to use part of space to open a hair salon.
While her dream of opening an ice cream store started to materialize, there were doubts about the viability of the shop. She was a cosmetologist by trade and didn’t have commercial baking experience. The only experience she had with ice cream was eating it. It was also challenging to find enough capital to cover the costs of renovations and other expenses of establishing a new business.
These challenges may have deterred others, but Sellers says she was fueled by the desire to change her career path and to find a new way to bring joy to customers in the neighborhood. And who doesn’t like ice cream?
“Hand-dipped ice cream wasn’t accessible along this corridor,” she says. “I felt that through ice cream and desserts that people can’t really be anything but happy when experiencing that.”
Her luck started to change once she received $50,000 last year from the District’s Great Streets program, a grant initiative offered through the city for new business owners in certain neighborhoods.
She drew inspiration from the clientele at the beauty salon, who were primarily bakers or businesswomen and who pushed her to take the idea of opening the establishment seriously.
Sellers said that she was “surrounded by a wealth of talents,” and wanted to support her salon regulars by giving them an opportunity to sell their baked goods regularly instead of just during the holiday season. Sellers began researching how to make her dream a reality in 2005 but didn’t start to invest in the idea until almost two years ago.
Since opening in June, news of Here’s the Scoop! circulated by word-of-mouth and social media. As a result, the store has built a successful following in the community and has attracted a wide array of patrons.
For some, its assortment of cookies, cakes, and other treats draws them in, but it’s the convivial atmosphere and wanting to support of a black-owned business that makes them want to stay.
Such is the case for Tayah Powell, a Howard University sophomore who felt compelled to support the business after learning on Twitter that it was black-owned.
“D.C. is Chocolate City and D.C. is the epitome of black,” Powell said. “It’s really nice to be able to visit what I would imagine D.C.’s roots to be.”
A quick visit to the store on a Tuesday evening means more to Powell than just grabbing a scoop of butter pecan ice cream. It means contributing to the success of a black-owned business in a city that has experienced widespread gentrification and demographic shifts.
In 1980, 70% of DC's population was black, but dwindled to nearly 47% by 2017, according to data from the Urban Institute and the U.S. Census Bureau. The combination of lower property values and skyrocketing housing costs in black neighborhoods forced long term residents out, giving way for developers and more white, affluent neighbors to move in.
“I was too unlucky to get here when D.C. was actually predominantly black, so any part I can do on supporting whatever black endeavors I can, I try my best to,” said Powell.
Here’s the Scoop! is also marking its place in history by being the first black woman- owned ice cream shop in the area. Sellers said that the shop has also become a source of pride for the community amidst the changes occurring in the neighborhood.
Nestled in between Harvard Street and Gresham Place on Georgia Avenue, Sellers said she wanted her store to be a family-friendly establishment and promote a sense of community. Her observations of liquor stores and violent events along the avenue spurred the thought of opening a dessert shop, simply because she wanted to “serve something to make them smile.”
This goal seems to be easily achieved as a mix Howard University students and local families can be heard chattering from the patio on a warm summer night.
Perhaps it’s the pink and yellow walls, containers of rainbow sprinkles lined atop the ice cream cooler, or the inviting personality of Sellers that offers a relief to the ambulance sirens, boarded up buildings, and bouts of crime that plague the corridor.
But as much as the community supports her new venture, it seems as if the 48-year-old D.C. native returns the favor with ease. Many of the employees are local students, and the store also serves as a place for other entrepreneurs to showcase their goods.
Sellers made it a mission to give back to the city that raised her. She’s made it personal, too, donating half of the proceeds of ice cream sales one day to an employee who had trouble securing funding for tuition.
Jackie Lassey is that student, an 18-year-old aspiring journalist and a freshman at the University of the District of Columbia. She calls Sellers a “mother-figure” and is inspired by her way of creating bonds with customers.
“I really appreciate her, and I’m grateful for everything that she’s done for me,” Lassey said. “Especially for someone she’s only known for a few months.”
She said that working at the store and its family-oriented environment has helped improve her public speaking skills and “come out of her shell.”
In between making waffle cones and helping students further their education, it’s clear that Karin Sellers and Here’s the Scoop! is serving up a little bit more than just ice cream.