“The origin story is I worked in manufacturing and wanted a way to retire with enough money to spend winters in Florida. I began thinking about ice cream as a business concept 14 years before buying my first store. After I got downsized from the Grand Rapids Press, the Fruitport ice cream store came up for sale. Initially hesitant, a friend convinced me by offering to underwrite it as a business write-off, leaving operations entirely to me. Surprised, I accepted his offer after careful thought.

Unexpectedly, I loved the community aspect. Initially, I didn’t like working nights and weekends, but my friends often visited, and it became both social and profitable. The first year was tough—we made only $36,000 total. By year three, I almost quit. But I decided to give it one more year, and luckily, we started making enough to live on. By year seven, things really took off, changing our whole financial outlook and allowing expansion. By year ten, we bought our second store.

I love being near the water. The Spring Lake–Grand Haven area became special to me—I bought a boat and spent summers wakeboarding, tubing, and biking around the area, eventually finding a house I could afford.

The people here are awesome, but we knew we needed a different business model than our other stores. At our other locations, people come specifically for Norm’s. The destination here, though, is the waterfront and boardwalk. We realized we needed to reinvent ourselves, so Norm’s Dairy Queen serves food and soft serve ice cream, where the other three locations, Norm’s Ice Cream, serve only ice cream, both hard and soft.”