Hattie Jane’s Creamery
A small-batch creamery and scoop shop born and raised in Tennessee features modern takes on Southern traditions.
by Mary Dansk
With choices on the menu like Bourbon Cherry Pie, Nana Puddin’, Buttermilk Chess Pie, and Mulekick Coffee, it sure feels like we stepped right into a meat-and-three in an old-fashioned downtown. Don’t expect any fried chicken on your plate, though. These are some of the ice cream flavors offered at Hattie Jane’s Creamery, home of the South’s premier craft ice cream and quintessential Southern scoop.
This community-driven, richly nostalgic yet brightly modern take on the old-fashioned ice cream shop is the brainchild of Claire Crowell, founder and CEO of Hattie Jane’s Creamery.
“It’s not what I envisioned myself doing as a child,” she admits. “I was shy, quiet. I thought I’d work with animals, maybe be a veterinarian. Or a writer.”
Serendipity has its way of putting us in unexpected places, and through her work with her family’s restaurant in Columbia, Tennessee, Claire found herself in a position to open up shop herself. She decided to try her hand at ice cream.
“‘It’s only one food, how hard can it be?’ I thought,” Claire confesses. “It turns out, it was hard.”
With absolutely no experience in making ice cream, Claire found herself immersed in a strange new world of food chemistry and entrepreneurship. Gathering the right team was the necessary magic ingredient she needed to pull off this vision. Amidst mechanical failures and rapidly melting ice cream, Hattie Jane’s grand opening — doubling as an Elsa-themed birthday party for her then 3-year-old daughter and the shop’s namesake — heralded the arrival of a new ice cream shop in town on July 1, 2016.
Now with four physical locations and a fifth on the horizon, the success of this ice cream venture is established. Its success might even inspire the question, “What is it that’s so special about this ice cream, this store, this concept?”
The answer is simple — locally sourced, fresh, seasonal ingredients are the key to the exquisite taste of this ice cream. Hattie Jane’s rolls out flavors as fruits and other ingredients are at their peak. This becomes controversial when strawberries aren’t in season, as fans of this popular flavor must suffer without their favorite ice cream until the strawberries are perfect.
“When we make strawberry ice cream out of season, for promotional pictures, for example, we’re surprised. It doesn’t taste at all like our seasonal strawberry ice cream tastes,” Claire explains.
While taste, texture, and creative ice cream flavors of the ice cream are essential, there’s more to the success of Hattie Jane’s than the frozen treat.
Claire, born and raised in Tennessee, brings a dose of nostalgia to the store. It’s a deeply embedded part of herself, rendered from summer afternoons on the porch outside her father’s country market in Leiper’s Fork, where she and her siblings ate freshly churned peach ice cream from her family’s Mennonite friends who sold their produce there. It’s a feeling of happiness, molded by family vacations to the beach, always seeking out the best ice cream in town, and returning there year after year. It’s the tingling memories and affections for afternoons when folks gathered at the family’s country market to “swap lies and tell tall tales,” as her father put it.
Local artist Matt Jenkins, who painted the store’s mint and coral mural, rays emanating from an ice cream cone in a nod to Nashville’s iconic Hatch Show Prints, sums it up nicely.
“There’s some true-blue Americana stuff going on at Hattie Jane’s Creamery,” he says. “It’s in every detail, including the shape of the tagline below the ice cream cone in the mural. When you look closely, you see “Ice Cream Makes Me Happy” is written as a smile. And if you stand centered for a picture, your body replaces the word “Me” in the mural. It is an exquisite attention to the little things.
Matt’s observation brings Claire’s laughter. “My childhood, living in a small town in Tennessee, parents owning a country market, embodies Americana. And now, what can be more Americana than an ice cream shop?”
This overarching appreciation for the richness of the traditional South shows in Claire’s opinion of her workforce.
“I love teenagers,” she said. “They’re savvy, they’re hard-working, and they keep you young.” Claire recalls her own days as a working teenager as integral in shaping her values. She appreciates the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of the young people who work at Hattie Jane’s.
Claire’s enthusiasm extends to her customers as well.
“I have a happy customer base. No one comes to get ice cream and leaves unhappy.”
Her favorite customers are grandchildren who come in with their grandparents, a timeless, ageless tradition that crosses all social boundaries.
As the business expands spirally, with more locations in the works for Tennessee, plans include moving into the corporate concierge gifting service offering a fresh take on client thank-you gifts and welcome parties.”
For those who aren’t in the vicinity of one of the four Hattie Jane’s Creamery Tennessee locations in Columbia, Murfreesboro, or Nashville, the company ships to all states in the continental United States, with ice cream kept perfectly chilled on dry ice and delivered within 48 hours.
To learn more, meet the team, see the current flavors, or order ice cream, visit hattiejanescreamery.com.