One of Branson’s most successful new local businesses is expanding their space while opening a brand new companion business.
Laiken and Cole Crutcher, owners of YOLO Rolled Ice Cream, announced the opening of YOLO Candy Company in the former Beef Jerky Experience space next door to YOLO’s initial location on the 76 Strip.
Laiken told Branson Tri-Lakes News the overwhelming success of YOLO Ice Cream created a need to grow which led to the new venture.
“In the summertime, it’s super packed in Yolo,” Laiken said. “It’s very busy. And so one day we were making ice cream, I looked over at Cole, and I said, ‘You know, if there’s ever an opportunity where we can expand YOLO, make it bigger, we need to do that, because we’ve outgrown our space, which is a blessing.” And then literally five minutes later, we got the news that the next door space was coming available. And so we jumped on it.”
YOLO Candy Co. has candy for old school candy lovers all the way up to the new trend of freeze dried candy.
Photo by Jason Wert
The pair realized they needed to do more than just expand the ice cream shop.
“We decided we wanted to put a candy shop in there, because we both love sweets and ice cream and candy go together,” Laiken said.
Just like they did with the rolled ice cream, the couple wanted to bring a level of fun into the new candy shop, so they created a whole “old school versus new school” theme.
“Cole came up with the idea to do new school candy versus old school candy, to have it almost be a competition,” Laiken said. “So we have all the old school candies that everyone loves: Mallow cups, Zagnuts, Charleston Chews. We have Razzles. We have candy cigarettes.”
The “new school” candies are headed up by a variety of freeze-dried candies.
“They taste way better than regular candy,” Laiken said. “They are amazing, and because they take all the moisture out, it makes the flavor like 10 times more intense. So it’s really, really good. And then we have the Mr. Beast bars that the kids love. So we have all that.”
Laiken says they never imagined being able to open a second business when they launched YOLO just over two years ago.
“Whenever we first opened, we didn’t think there was going to be a single person here,” she said. “We were doing the numbers trying to figure out how many ice creams we needed to sell a day to keep the lights on. And we would have never believed ourselves if we said how many ice creams we do now each day, or that we’d be opening a candy shop less than three years later. So we knew we wanted to do another YOLO somewhere, another ice cream shop somewhere, or just expand here. But we love where we’re at. We don’t want to leave Branson. So we just kind of want to get bigger in Branson, and then maybe sometime in the future, expand to like other cities and stuff.”
YOLO Ice Cream and YOLO Candy Co. are both open seven days a week from noon until 10 p.m. at 2005 W. 76 Country Boulevard. Details on the new business can be found on the YOLO website, yoloicecream.com.
