Wildflower Ice Cream shop<\/a>, 2603 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street N., earlier this month with a ribbon cutting. <\/p>\nThe shop offers New Zealand-style, made-to-order soft serve ice cream using whole, real fruit mixed into a base. <\/p>\n
The endeavor is also influenced by his wife\u2019s California upbringing. Growing up in San Jose, Sarah lived down the block from a shop centered on the classic Swirl Freeze dessert maker, well known on the West Coast. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs a little girl, she\u2019d go down the street and there would be this loud machine making ice cream,\u201d McGarry said. <\/p>\n
He added, \u201cWhen she told me about it, I knew we had to build a business around it.\u201d <\/p>\n
The machine also made their goal of a 50\/50 dairy-based and vegan menu easy \u2014 which was personally important to the couple because their son was nondairy during the first year of his life and McGarry is also lactose intolerant. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll you have to do is change the base of the ice cream to vegan and the entire menu opens up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
See Also: <\/p>\n
At the heart of the ice cream shop is partnerships with other local businesses. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted it to be collaborative with everybody, make it a whole community,\u201d McGreery said. <\/p>\n
The owners of Pete\u2019s Bagels created Wildflower\u2019s logo, Look Alive Coffee\u2019s owners designed the ice cream shop\u2019s menu and Sun Signs St. Pete designed the A-frame chalkboard sign that stands out front of the shop, <\/p>\n
The couple has also incorporated offerings from local companies into their potential toppings swirled into the ice cream and other pairings \u2014 gluten-free and vegan brownies from HaleLife Bakery, honey-glazed croissants from Cafe Clementine, and confetti sugar cookies from Pete\u2019s Bagels.<\/p>\n
The business is truly a family affair. McGreery, a former software CEO, sold his last two tech companies and was wondering what he might do next, especially with two young children, ages four-and-a-half and 1 years old. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to take a beat from software and do something different, and teach them about business through something they understand,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd what better than ice cream.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shop is \u201ctruly family owned,\u201d he added. \u201cOur kids are on the menu. Their names are on the menu and their favorite ice creams are on the menu.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, FL \u2014 When the Dairy Inn at 1201 Dr MLK Jr. Street N. closed its doors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-5511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}