The Idea
It all began in 2016, we embarked on yet another family holiday to Thailand and saw the Thai ice cream rolls. We fell in love with the concept and realised that there was hardly anything like this available in the UK! My mum was dissatisfied with her current job, and I had no idea what I wanted to do whilst at college, so we made the decision to venture into business together as a mother-daughter team. Being very naive we ordered an Ice cream pan machine from China and dedicated countless hours at home in the kitchen to master the art of creating ice cream rolls (it was a lot more difficult than we imagined lol). After persistent efforts, we succeeded in creating the recipe, and "Ice Queenz" was born!
On The Road!
During the summer of 2017, We took our ice cream rolls on tour! From visiting different food festivals, we brought Ice Queenz to customers all across the UK, including our home town in Barnsley. My mum and dad have worked on Barnsley Market all my life so it just seemed like the perfect place. As the summer drew to a close we reflected on our resounding success in the van and realized it was time to seek out a more permanent home for Ice Queenz.
Ice Queenz
After discovering the perfect location, we proudly launched our shop in Barnsley. As the business grew, so did our menu as we knew we couldn’t just have a shop selling ice cream rolls in the middle of Barnsley, in winter. So we decided to include other desserts such as waffles, crepes and cookie dough along with coffees and milkshakes.
However, as time went on, we realised that ice cream rolls weren’t quite the right fit, honestly they were so time consuming and the brand as a whole felt kind of childish we wanted to move the business towards a new direction. So.. we went on a course to master the art of making gelato and fell in love with it! With this newfound passion, we made the decision to transition from ice cream rolls to gelato (best decision we ever made).
Obviously because the Ice Queenz brand was so deeply rooted in the world of ice cream rolls, we decided to rebrand to make the switch from ice cream rolls to gelato. The Ice Queenz brand was very much revolved around the ice cream rolls we thought this was the best decision!
Dolly's Desserts
Named after our beloved pet cockapoo Dolly, me and mum decided to rebrand as “Dolly’s Desserts”.
Our timing couldn’t have been better as Barnsley Town Centre commenced construction on Market Kitchen. Seizing the opportunity, we opened the first Dolly’s Desserts location, a spot that remains open and is still available to visit today! We closed our Ice Queens location down and opened a kiosk style location in the market kitchen, along with other independents serving up food from all over the world. This is where our passion for baking was sparked. We were buying things in but never 100% happy, The decision was made to start baking in our kitchen at home (it was like the ice cream rolls all over again lol) my mum worked tirelessly tweaking and perfecting the brownie recipe until it was perfect, these became a huge hit with our customers we sold out every week!
Closed Doors
As the Market Kitchen started to get really busy, Dolly’s Desserts was growing in popularity within Barnsley, growing week by week. However, when lockdown hit due to the coronavirus pandemic, this brought an abrupt halt to operations, forcing Dolly’s to close its doors indefinitely. Like many small businesses, there was uncertainty of what the future would hold for the business.
Online Growth
Amidst the challenges we decided to pour our time into a brand new platform: TikTok. Despite the app being in it’s beginning stages, we dove into the world of short videos and quickly developed a passion for it. When restrictions eased and businesses could offer takeaway services, this brought a new found love for TikTok to Dolly’s, sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses of our desserts and the inner workings of the business.
The response was overwhelming – Dolly’s TikTok account rapidly gained traction, surpassing over a MILLION followers in no time. With people from all corners of the UK flocking to our store to try our irresistible treats for themselves.
As our social media presence continued to grow and the shop became increasingly busy, we wondered how Dolly’s could reach even further. More and more people were making the journey to Barnsley, always making sure to take away our bakes to share with loved ones. But what about those people who were dying to try Dolly’s but may not be able to make the trip to visit us? That’s when the decision was made to expand through selling online. Work started on creating products which we could send through the post. Our cookie dough kits were our first product and an instant hit!
Expansion
Just when they though it couldn’t get any busier, even more people came to visit Dolly’s, leaving queues snaking around the market. Meanwhile, we continued to make all of the bakes for the shop from our home kitchen. With timing once again on our side as Barnsley’s brand new Glass Works refurbishment was taking place, it became evident that the natural next step would be to open our very own store!
From here on we gave our undivided attention to creating the ultimate Dolly’s experience in our sit-down store. We poured our hearts into the shop and built this from the ground up, with every detail being meticulously planned in order to give that complete luxury experience. Finally in December 2022, just a week before Christmas, we proudly opened the doors and our vision of Dolly’s was brought to life!
Dolly's At Home?!
Due to the large following Dolly’s had gained on TikTok, it was a no-brainer to venture onto the brand new shopping platform, TikTok Shop. Thinking of new products, We had the brainwave of bottling up our signature sauces that are used in our stores, allowing people to elevate their desserts at home with that Dolly’s touch!
The response was overwhelming. With a hectic Black Friday and Christmas season, thousands of our products were sent from our little shop in Barnsley, all across the UK. As 2023 drew to a close, we were astounded by the vast number of people the brand had touched.
Making Plans
The new year brought in new opportunities for our brand, we began the year with a visit to Italy to learn new skills, with the skills in place we started making Gelato cakes to order, we continue to experiment, even making a 20 layer gelato cake to sell in store by the slice. As we’ve settled into our store we’ve had some exciting collaborations with brands such as, Archies, Tango, Nutella, Now TV, Clomana and then the offer to write our very first book… we can’t wait for what the rest of 2024 holds.