Stockist Alert: Graffiti Market!
The Four All team has officially left the Cone Counter in the hands of Graffiti Market! To celebrate this transition of Graffiti Market becoming our newest stockist, we interviewed Neil & Ryan to talk about the evolution of the market and see why they're excited to take on ice cream.
Graffiti Market is a market, restaurant, brewery, and bakery all operated under the umbrella of the Ignite Restaurant Group. The Graffiti Market officially joined the community August 2018, but it was a long time coming. Located inside what used to be an old storage warehouse, it took 3 years of planning to turn it into the space it is today. Graffiti Market was just a (10,000 square ft.) piece of the much larger Catalyst 137 building, intended to be a one-stop-shop idea-to-delivery tech hub. Ryan shares that the idea for Graffiti Market began when Catalyst reached out looking for a partner that could bring a food service that was different than everything else offered in Waterloo Region. In developing the market space, Ryan wanted to have a collaborative food community and asked Ajoa about how they could incorporate Four All Ice Cream.
Much of the decision for Four All to collaborate with Graffiti Market was based on the idea and excitement that there wasn't a space quite like this in Kitchener-Waterloo yet. "One thing that unifies all the food partners is the big makers presence in this building... There's a bit of ingenuity in what everyone brings into this space", says Ajoa.
One of the largest draws to Graffiti Market, and a perfect reflection of the tech environment, are the digital tables. "We're the first in North America, not just in our community to use digital tables and that speaks volumes to the technology focus in this region", says Ryan. Something that's surprised the Graffiti team so far has been the amount of families that come to enjoy the space. "Something we maybe should have expected to an extent considering we were introducing digital tables in a place that serves ice cream and pizza", says Neil. Ajoa finds that the entire space offers a level of interactivity that is hard to find anywhere else. "I don't feel bad when my kids walk around the space... they feel welcome to wander", she shares.
As ice cream season starts up in full force, Four All has handed the Cone Counter over to the Graffiti Market team to manage as a new stockist and satellite scooping location instead. The intent of the partnership between Four All and Graffiti Market hasn't changed though and the experience at the Cone Counter will stay very much the same. In fact, Graffiti Market is launching a new Market Partners program, which will include the Cone Counter serving Four All Ice Cream and also Freshii in the take out fridges of the market. The goal is to offer space for other small businesses in the community that have other vital focuses. For Four All, Ajoa expresses that we are primarily a manufacturer and a wholesaler. Graffiti Market does retail and they have the resources to be a part of our growing ice cream community.
To conclude our discussion with Neil and Ryan, we asked them to dream up an ice cream idea and they said: Ice. Cream. Spaghetti. "You know those old Play-Do spätzle makers?", says Ryan, "You push the ice cream through and put strawberry sauce on top so it looks like spaghetti". Add white chocolate too as the parmesan cheese. This is maybe, probably something that will come to Graffiti Market. We'll be waiting, boys.
Keep an eye on their patio from the Iron Horse Trail this summer, or see what they're up to on Instagram, Facebook, or their Website.
