The founders of Ample Hills are bankrupt again

Despite what the Hallmark Channel tells us this time of year, fairytale endings don’t always stick.

Brian Smith and Jackie Cuscuna, the Brooklyn couple who founded Ample Hills Creamery, have been fired by the same investors who bailed out the popular ice cream brand in June. Norm Brodsky, the angel investor who raised nearly $1 million last summer to help them reopen four stores and a manufacturing center, confirmed the layoffs Wednesday; they were first reported by Inc., where Mr. Brodsky is a columnist.

Mr. Smith said in an interview that he and Ms. Cuscuna had lost everything. “We have no equity, no contract and no jobs,” and our dismissal was denied, he said.

But Mr. Brodsky said the terms of the couple’s departure have yet to be negotiated. “They are nice people with creativity and talent,” he said. “That talent doesn’t extend to running a business.”

He and the couple agreed that Mr. Smith and Ms. Cuscuna quickly clashed with the company’s new CEO: Lisa Teach, a longtime adjunct professor at the business school, gifted by Mr. Brodsky to his alma mater , Rider University, in New Jersey. . Ms. Teach, a minority investor in Ample Hills who also owns Five Guys franchises, declined to comment.

Mr. Smith and Ms. Cuscuna opened a modest scoop shop near their Prospect Heights apartment in 2011 and spent a decade building Ample Hills into a national brand with 17 stores, Disney tie-ins, endorsements from celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and sold packaged pints. in supermarkets.

But the breakneck expansion proved fatal: they lost the company due to bankruptcy in 2020, and sold it to an Oregon machine parts company for $1 million, Schmitt Industries, who struggled to keep the company afloat. In the resulting fire sale of Ample Hills’ assets, the couple repurchased the brand for $150,000.

Looking back, Mr. Smith told The New York Times in June, “We made every mistake we possibly could.”

Apparently that wasn’t entirely true.

After losing Ample Hills, the couple opened a community-themed ice cream parlor in 2021. the social, near their original store. Hoping to deepen their business knowledge, they networked extensively and found their way to Mr. Brodsky, an experienced Brooklyn entrepreneur who often mentors small business owners. Mr. Brodsky made an initial $450,000 investment in the Social and then helped finance the purchase and restart of the Ample Hills brand with additional investors. They formed a new holding company, Do-Nut Hills, which now operates both the Social and Ample Hills (and in which Mr. Smith and Ms. Cuscuna have invested no money).

“We hoped that investors would see the value of our ideas,” Mr. Smith said.

He acknowledged that he and Ms. Cuscuna were once again caught up in the company’s creative challenges; and because they trusted Mr. Brodsky, they failed to secure the contracts and documentation that would have made the dismissal impossible.

Mr. Brodsky said his mandate for Do-Nut Hills is the same as for all the other companies he has led: remain profitable and protect jobs, including the 50 employees currently on the books. “I think this is a happy ending for most of the people involved,” he said.