H.A. Hang: Amy Wilson of Milk Jawn

The coolest part of our business has always been our clients. We’re amazed by all they do: CEOs and business owners, world travelers, authors, inventors, healers, entrepreneurs, newscasters, artists, pro athletes, musicians, caretakers, and philanthropists. 

We launched this series to share the stories of our clients and form connections within the H.A. community. Enjoy!

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Home Appétit: Running an ice cream shop seems like a dream job. How did you get started?
Amy Wilson: It started in my home kitchen around 2012. I was given an ice cream maker and recipe book for Christmas. I went to town reverse-engineering my own recipes because I wasn’t happy with any in the cookbook.

Making good ice cream at home is pretty hard, right? 
Yeah, but it's really fun, too. It becomes a puzzle, almost like a math problem, where every flavor is a new adventure. You have to figure out how to make the best texture and make it all come together.

How did you go from making ice cream at home to owning two of Philly’s most popular scoop shops?
I started playing with different flavors—and my husband was like, ‘you should do something with this.’ I was looking to make a career change and I ended up bringing on two friends to help. We started doing pop-ups in 2019 and launched a crowdfunding campaign. That helped us move into a permanent space and purchase a professional ice cream maker. Then, everything got shut down because of COVID so we decided to deliver pints to people in the city. It actually wasn’t until August of 2022 that we opened our first scoop shop on Passyunk Avenue.

I bet you eat a lot of ice cream. Has running this business ruined ice cream for you?
I still love ice cream but I don’t eat as much of Milk Jawn’s ice cream any more. A lot of times I try other people's ice cream because it's something different. But it's also research!

Pretty fun research. What’s your favorite flavor?
I’m a pretty big chocolate peanut butter person.

Is there a flavor that you want to have in the shops that you haven’t been able to figure out?
There's one flavor. It's Brown Butter Brown Sugar Brownie. It's one of my favorites. We made it in smaller bathes when we were first starting out. I've been trying to get that recipe to the point where we can produce it on a larger scale and I haven’t gotten it there yet. 

What’s your favorite thing about running an ice cream business?
Being able to connect with the community. I hear stories from people who say they met their wives at Milk Jawn or had their first date there. They bonded over ice cream. That’s really awesome. 

Is there something that you didn’t expect?
When I started I thought, ‘okay, let’s try this thing.’ And now I've got 30-plus employees. Whoa. I spend a good portion of my day doing HR things. You think that owning an ice cream shop is like being in Willy Wonka land but there’s this other side that’s dealing with licensing and calling plumbers.

Since my husband and I are both small business owners, it’s incredibly difficult to find time to cook healthy dinners for our family. I discovered Home Appétit a couple years ago and it’s become a lifeline for us. We order almost every week.

What do you like to do in Philly when you’re not eating ice cream?
I live in Fairmount and my husband and I love eating at Bad Brother. We also go to Ember & Ash in East Passyunk a lot. I love wandering around, I love the Italian Market, and all the Mexican spots. I love exploring and finding new places.