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Jeni Britton Bauer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams is the badass boss we need now

Owning an ice cream empire sounds like the kind of job that’s paid out in rainbows and sprinkles and puppies. But for Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, the greatest reward is bringing memories, nostalgia and feelings to life through her product. The 43-year-old entrepreneur has devoted nearly half her life to the art of ice cream. At 21 she walked out of a figure-drawing class at Ohio State University, where she was studying art history and fine art, and subsequently quit school. “I left everything there—my whole portfolio from the whole season, all of my art supplies, my paper, everything,” she said. “I rode my bike home and made ice cream and never went back.”

She opened her very first shop, Scream Ice Cream, in 1996 in Columbus, Ohio. Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams was born soon after in 2002. Today she has two dozen scoop shops in eight cities, including three in Chicago: Southport, Wicker Park and the newest addition, Armitage, which opened Dec. 16 inside the Foxtrot storefront (900 W. Armitage Ave.). Beyond tubs of colorful ice cream, the new counter will offer an exclusive menu item you won’t find at other locations: Street Waffles, yeast-raised, iron-baked handheld treats served blanketed in vanilla bean or salted maple glaze. Bauer has been perfecting the recipe for years and describes the taste and texture as “more like a cruller doughnut than any waffle you’ve ever had.” Ahead of the grand opening, Bauer and I met at Floriole Cafe & Bakery to talk social media flavor suggestions, butter and politics.

When you quit school and started making ice cream, did you ever feel like you were in over your head?

In the beginning, it always feels like you’re in over your head. And then what happens at some point, like with every entrepreneur I’ve ever met, is you get used to that feeling and you start to crave it. If you’re not in over your head, you have to figure out a way to be so that you’re always challenging yourself. Entrepreneurship has really, really high highs and really, really low lows. It’s hard and awesome in every way.

I’m sure lots of great people have bestowed advice upon you throughout the years. But what’s the realest thing you’ve heard so far?

It’s weird. I’m not one to take advice. That’s my problem. It was that way when I was a kid too. When someone tells me what I should do, I tend to purposely go the other way. … But there are [a few] quotes I go back to a lot. One is from Ricky Gervais, and it’s really simple: “No one else knows what they’re doing either.” I think that’s so true. I feel like the older I get, the more I know that all those people who acted like they knew what I should do, I realized they didn’t know shit. Most people who act like experts really aren’t. And it’s so funny to me. It should give us all confidence to jump in and be confident as well.

Do people ever pitch flavor ideas via social media? What’s the weirdest request you’ve seen?

Most are pretty great. I have had lots of requests for marijuana ice cream, which I actually want to do. I think it’d be really fun. The weird one was—and it wasn’t weird, I just didn’t know how to respond—when someone said I should make a sorbet that tastes like snow. I didn’t know how to process that because snow is just water. That’s that. Or does it taste like snow makes you feel? There could be more to it. I actually thought about that one for years. Is it the world’s most boring flavor or the most fascinating and interesting flavor?

Is there a flavor that has more sentimental value to you than the rest?

In some ways, our lemon yogurt would be like that. It’s always been my favorite, but it’s never been one of the top sellers. I feel like all of our yogurts are the best thing we do, but people don’t want yogurt when they come in. … I have this need to give them their own stage and keep pushing them. And this is like 20 years.

What’s the story behind the lemon yogurt?

When I was a kid, we used to come to O’Hare Airport to pick up family when they’d fly into town. Every time we’d come up, there was a yogurt guy at O’Hare standing outside the airport with a bag of frozen yogurts. They were not at all like TCBY, they were like yogurt, but frozen. I always got raspberry. I loved yogurt growing up, but this tasted just like our yogurts now. … Literally, the first day I was making ice cream, I thought, “I have to make that yogurt,” because it was such an incredible memory.

If you’re ordering a trio at one of your shops, which flavors do you pick?

I will probably go with whatever sorbet we have, so right now that would be the blackcurrant lambic. And then a yogurt, which would probably be the lemon. And then either pistachio or dark chocolate ice cream. I like to get three different textures in a trio if I can. I think that they kind of clash in a good way together.

Besides ice cream, what’s one food you’ll never be able to give up?

I love vegetables. That’s probably a good balance as an ice cream maker. I can eat a whole head of cauliflower for dinner. But maybe I should say the real food I would never ever be able to give up is butter. I go through a pound a week at home and I don’t even cook that much.

What song are you most likely to rock out to while riding an ice cream sugar high?

Well, that happens to me a lot. I love music in my car, and I always have to have my fight song, my go to work song. There’s been a lot of them, but all of “Hamilton” has been on repeat. … After the election, I’ve been listening to “Land of Confusion” by Genesis. It’s so cheesy in the mid-’80s kind of way. [When it came out, Ronald] Regan was president and I was a kid. I was so scared that we were going to have a nuclear war. I was sure of it; the grown-ups in my life seemed pretty darn sure of it too. It was a scary time, even from a kid’s perspective, it felt like a lot of unrest in the world, a lot of people not getting along. … It feels like that today to me.

I’ll say this: The idea of a president who does not even care about diversity or about women, I’m very upset about the election. … I just really don’t like going backwards as women and all of the things we’ve worked on, even as a company, to make sure that people are safe. … I really feel like being a positive activist now, and I’ve never felt that way before in my life. I always felt like we were on the right track, and now I just feel like we’re not.

I think a lot of people are asking themselves what they can do right now.

I’ll tell you what you can do, you can sign up for emails from my side hustle, thegoodfights.org. It’s just a bunch of women and me trying to figure out the same thing. There’s a lot of organizing going on right now, and I feel really good about it. And people not wanting to be back in the bubble and forget about this. There are so many challenges we didn’t even understand existed. I want to be very sensitive to all of that and not keep dividing people but bring them together. We’re in a weird place.

As an ice cream maker, these are really good issues. A lot of our customers are women, a lot of our customers are in the creative field. Truly, how can you be creative without people who are different than you around? That goes for everybody, but our ice cream shops are great places to have safe conversations with maybe people you don’t agree with. … Our stores have to be places where great conversations can happen, and they do.

Jeni’s Armitage is now open inside Foxtrot at 900 W. Armitage Ave.