Not your average success stories

Good business, good people, good vibes

This look at the future of hospitality is sponsored by Square.

In my work on my series, Counter Trends, for The Bottom Line by Square, I’ve talked to a lot of restaurant operators. But few are as personally inspiring as the women I recently spoke to — Molly Moon-Neitzel from Molly Moon’s Ice Cream in Seattle and Arshiya Farheen from Verzênay bakery in Chicago — who have built thriving values-driven businesses that are doing great while also doing good.

Each approaches their business with genuine care. Moon-Neitzel told stories about cherries picked by local preschool children that she used in her first batches of cherry-chunk ice cream (she eventually had to graduate to a larger, but still local supplier). And Farheen described clearly why hiring a female kitchen staff — most of whom are mothers and caretakers outside of work — has benefitted her pastry business. It’s not easy — both women spoke of the uncomfortable trade-offs required to stick to their values while working to turn a profit — but it’s clearly rewarding.

It’s also refreshing to me, a business journalist, to hear stories of success tied to leaning on strong values like supporting women and local farmers and a local community, knowing that good business doesn’t have to come at the expense of being a good human.

Molly Moon-Neitzel, an outspoken community activist, started her 11-location ice cream empire as a kind of experiment. After years of running a political non-profit, she was curious if she could also run a for-profit business that aligned with her values. The answer, almost two decades later, is: most definitely yes. When we talked late last year, the business was on track to pass $15 million in annual sales, including its retail stores and presence in 150 local grocery stores.

Identifying and sticking to strong beliefs and values — values like care and community that transcend polarizing culture and politics — is critical to Molly Moon’s success, she told me. (Speaking of polarizing, you should read the full story to fully absorb Moon-Neitzel’s fiery passion for her extra-salty salted caramel recipe!)

“I was loud about my values, and people would come in and tell me that they shared my values,” Moon-Neitzel said. “I was in community from the beginning.”

In Chicago, chef Arshiya Farheen started Verzênay after spending years in Paris training, then working, in prestigious French kitchens inside hotel Le Meurice and patisserie Arnaud Delmontel. She loved the rigor of the kitchens, the precision, the discipline, the pursuit of excellence, she told me.

“But,” she said, “I was often one of very few women in the room. And while no one explicitly told me I didn’t belong, there were subtle messages about endurance, about commitment, about who was ‘cut out’ for this life.”

That experience inspired her bakery’s operational structure today. She launched Verzênay as a stand inside a farmers’ market in 2014 and moved to a brick-and-mortar location seven years later. Most of the people who work inside its kitchen are women.

“I didn’t sit down and say, ‘I’m building a female kitchen,’” she said. Instead, she built the kind of kitchen she wanted to work inside. “Over time, that intention shaped the team naturally.”

It’s also led to great results: low turnover, high-quality customer service, and consistent product quality. Or, in Farheen’s words, “deep loyalty, care, and investment.”

“When someone feels safe and respected, they don’t just clock in and clock out,” she added. “They care about the details. They protect the standards, they protect each other.”

We hadn’t discussed much about her plans for growth or expansion, though in a separate interview, her husband told me Verzenay was expanding into catering and also nationwide shipping, selling cookies, jams, jellies, preserves, and gorgeous packaged bonbons to customers outside of Chicago.

“Our growth hasn’t been explosive for the sake of expansion. It’s been steady, rooted. And I believe that’s because the foundation is strong. When you build with intention, growth becomes sustainable not just financially, but culturally. For me, that’s success.”

Thanks to Square for sponsoring this coverage, supporting my deep dives into the top challenges (and wins!) for local restaurants. Read more about these and other trends in my series Counter Trends, published on The Bottom Line.