Ian Watson and Conner Levitt
Mason’s Creamery, located in Cleveland’s the Near West Side, undergoes a metamorphosis every winter and spring, when the ice creamery becomes something wholly different: a ramen shop. Mason’s creamery is a place that transforms itself to suit drastically different seasons in Cleveland. While Mason’s is now a neighborhood institution, it had a humble beginning in a co-op kitchen over a decade ago. The founder and owner, Jesse Mason, explained, “When we started out, we were a mobile operation with a co-op kitchen that we rented hourly. I think it was 50 bucks an hour, which equates to a lot of scoops of ice cream. We’d go in and we knock out portions for three days straight and then the rest of the time we’d be doing events.”
Mason’s is a little bit different from other ramen or ice cream shops in Ohio. They make all of their food with fresh ingredients throughout the whole process. Jesse told us the story of their approach. “When we first started, there weren’t a lot of ice cream shops left in Ohio that were making ice cream from scratch. It was all mix-based. … That’s just not what we wanted to do. So we started pasteurizing mixes ourselves… We were one of only about four at the time. Now there’s hundreds of them.” Every summer day there’s a new flavor of ice cream to try, and they’ve made almost 5,000 different flavors over the life of the business! Mason’s has tried some experimental flavors, such as using ube instead of vanilla due to a vanilla shortage, spam and pineapple, and have even put ice cream in their ramen!
“As simple as possible.”
Jesse Mason
Mason’s Creamery was ahead of the trend on ice cream from scratch, and brought the homemade values and focus on flavor to their ramen. The broth in their ramen is “as simple as possible,” and isn’t based on powders or premade flavors. Everything’s done in house. Ramen allows the shop to be open year-round, bringing customers in throughout Cleveland’s cold winters.
Jesse Mason and his team have felt really supported by the business community in Cleveland. Several employees had been working there since almost the beginning, and the neighborhood has embraced Mason’s Creamery. According to Jessie, Mason’s Creamery’s “experience with Cleveland is that people will show up for you. It is such a welcoming and hospitable business environment for small businesses. We’ve been very fortunate.”
“Our experience with Cleveland is that people will show up for you. It is such a welcoming and hospitable business environment for small businesses. We’ve been very fortunate.”
Jesse Mason
Ian Watson is a senior at Oberlin College, graduating with an individual major in Science, Technology, and Society. When he isn’t cooking, he’s often eating in OSCA, losing at Mario Kart, and performing aerial silks with OCircus. You can find him at LinkedIn or contact him at iwatson [at] oberlin [dot] edu
