Plano Star-courier > Plano Insider
'Ice cream makes you pretty'
Liz McGathey / Staff Photo
By Liz McGathey, lmcgathey@acnpapers.com
Henry Gentry raises his voice slightly to be heard over the hum of the freezers behind the counter at Henry’s Homemade Ice Cream in Plano. Each one holds 25 years’ worth of hard work creating some of the most intense and unique ice cream flavors around.
“I knew I always wanted to be in business for myself,” Gentry said. “I wasn’t quite sure what road I would take.”
By 1992, Gentry left the ice cream shop he started with his father in Philadelphia to strike out on his own and fill a niche in Plano.
“Nobody was making specialty ice cream for chefs. And the chefs, I found out, did not like this,” he said. “So I saw that if I ask the chefs what they want, they’ll order it – and they did. At first, I was a little bit taken aback because I thought, ‘Why did I discover this and nobody else?’ You think there’s got to be something wrong here.”
Gentry bought his space at West 15th Street and Independence Parkway in Plano in 1994, where he still scoops to this day. He attributes the success of Henry’s to the practice of simply making the ice cream that people want.
“We don’t make ice cream then try to sell it to the chefs; we have the chefs tell us what they want us to make. None of the other ice cream companies do that,” he said. “That’s why I was able to land in a niche market and be successful and be in business for 25 years – because I actually ask my customers what they want.”
By marketing Henry’s at trade shows and conventions, Gentry works tirelessly to develop and foster relationships with area chefs to boost his wholesale business.
“We grew pretty fast in the beginning, and we’re still growing today. We make ice cream for anybody; we make the same exact product for a two-star, a three-star or a four-star restaurant,” he said. “We noticed that if we market ourselves by doing shows where we display and sample the product, chefs actually get to taste the product. A lot of customers are there and they tell the chefs what they’d like to see in the restaurants.”
Henry’s formula, which features the highest butterfat on the market, makes the ice cream – as Gentry says – the “super unleaded of the ice cream industry.”
“The reason I do that is because the ice cream is guaranteed to be great, and we want a great product,” he said. “We make our ice creams really strong with strong flavors and lots of pralines or fudge – whatever the ingredient is – we add extra. You buy our butter pecan, you get more than just one.”
Gentry said he has been asked about the dietary implications of his 16 percent butterfat content, but he suggests eating less; he doesn’t recommend eating diet ice cream.
“Why should you buy dietary ice cream? It’s not good. Buy better ice cream, but only eat half as much. That is the secret. Why buy bad ice cream and get no value and wind up actually paying more for it?” he said. “Get the better ice cream. We’ve looked at it, and what I’ve found over the years is that people actually come to Henry’s Ice Cream because we advertise it as homemade and it’s the highest butterfat in the history of mankind, so they’ll make a special trip to come see us because of that.”
He said he could offer a yogurt or low-calorie alternative – and may do so in the future – but doesn’t want his products to be part of a fad.
“There’s nothing like ice cream on a cone. You can’t put Dippin’ Dots on a cone,” Gentry said. “I see that great ice cream will always be something that people choose.”
In addition, Gentry said many ice cream companies have cheapened their formulas over the years because it’s expensive to make. He said he uses the same ingredients he used when he arrived in Plano in 1992.
Gentry said flavors mostly come from requests from chefs but also from in-house testing. Retail customers also offer their input.
“Customers ask us all the time to make ice cream flavors they had as a child and hadn’t seen it on the market, and we do that,” he said.
Henry’s makes about 1,000 flavors every year, and at any given time, around 35 flavors are available in the shop for retail customers. Over his 25 years making ice cream, Gentry said he has made roughly 10,000 different flavors. He said the most popular, surprisingly, is cinnamon.
For the holidays, Henry’s has been mixing up cozier flavors like pumpkin pie, rum raisin and peppermint stick.
Despite the colder weather, Henry’s still sees a balance in sales because families are entertaining and eating in restaurants more often.
“We see a slight drop [during the winter] in retail cone purchases, but our bulk ice cream, like half gallons and pies, go up because of the holiday,” he said. “If there’s a gathering at Thanksgiving or Christmas, the customers come and buy half gallons of the products.”
Although Gentry keeps busy with the approximately 550 restaurants that serve Henry’s Homemade Ice Cream, he plans events throughout the year to give back to the community that welcomed him 16 years ago.
Once Girl Scout Cookie time rolls around each year, Gentry makes out stacks of checks for $7 each in order to buy two boxes from each Scout who walks through the door. Then, each type of cookie earns its own ice cream to be sold to the public, and children and their families are invited to Henry’s on a special night for a free scoop.
Every summer for the past 17 years, Henry’s has hosted a pajama party featuring “celebrity scoopers” to help raise money for cancer research.
“They’re all cancer survivors, so we have boys, girls, babies, Grandma, Grandpa, white, red, black. All ages, colors, religions – it’s transcended by cancer,” Gentry said. “That’s the only night we do tips, and all the money goes to the local cancer research.”
The event is organized by event planner Judy Cordell, a cancer survivor, and every customer who shows up in pajamas gets a free quart of ice cream. Gentry said at least 400 people come out every year and fill the small corner shop.
One wall at Henry’s is lined with awards he has received over the years, including several new ones from this year’s National Ice Cream and Retailers Association convention in November.
He’s taken top awards for Senator Shapiro’s Texas Praline, Payday, My Mom’s Lemon Pie and, of course, vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.
For 2010, Gentry took second in vanilla, second in chocolate, third in best holiday flavor (which was Payday – “every day’s a holiday when you’re getting paid”) and honorable mention for best new flavor, which was angel food-flavored.
Henry’s Wedding Cake, which took first place for Best Holiday Flavor in 2004, was actually served at Gentry’s wedding when he married Carolyn Tolley five and a half years ago.
Gentry met Tolley at a wine tasting, another of his passions.
“She has ice cream for life; that’s how I proposed to her,” he said. “I put the ring on a cherry with a sundae.”
Gentry’s 12-hour days illustrate his love for his work, but the business gets harder every year, he said.
“People try to copy what you did, but I think that you have to put your personality and your passion into it to create the winning formula,” he said. “We’ve pushed our name and our brand so that people recognize it now.
“We’re so passionate about our ice cream and we want everyone to feel the same way. We have so many fans that promote our product for us. We’re blessed in that way.”
“I knew I always wanted to be in business for myself,” Gentry said. “I wasn’t quite sure what road I would take.”
By 1992, Gentry left the ice cream shop he started with his father in Philadelphia to strike out on his own and fill a niche in Plano.
“Nobody was making specialty ice cream for chefs. And the chefs, I found out, did not like this,” he said. “So I saw that if I ask the chefs what they want, they’ll order it – and they did. At first, I was a little bit taken aback because I thought, ‘Why did I discover this and nobody else?’ You think there’s got to be something wrong here.”
Gentry bought his space at West 15th Street and Independence Parkway in Plano in 1994, where he still scoops to this day. He attributes the success of Henry’s to the practice of simply making the ice cream that people want.
“We don’t make ice cream then try to sell it to the chefs; we have the chefs tell us what they want us to make. None of the other ice cream companies do that,” he said. “That’s why I was able to land in a niche market and be successful and be in business for 25 years – because I actually ask my customers what they want.”
By marketing Henry’s at trade shows and conventions, Gentry works tirelessly to develop and foster relationships with area chefs to boost his wholesale business.
“We grew pretty fast in the beginning, and we’re still growing today. We make ice cream for anybody; we make the same exact product for a two-star, a three-star or a four-star restaurant,” he said. “We noticed that if we market ourselves by doing shows where we display and sample the product, chefs actually get to taste the product. A lot of customers are there and they tell the chefs what they’d like to see in the restaurants.”
Henry’s formula, which features the highest butterfat on the market, makes the ice cream – as Gentry says – the “super unleaded of the ice cream industry.”
“The reason I do that is because the ice cream is guaranteed to be great, and we want a great product,” he said. “We make our ice creams really strong with strong flavors and lots of pralines or fudge – whatever the ingredient is – we add extra. You buy our butter pecan, you get more than just one.”
Gentry said he has been asked about the dietary implications of his 16 percent butterfat content, but he suggests eating less; he doesn’t recommend eating diet ice cream.
“Why should you buy dietary ice cream? It’s not good. Buy better ice cream, but only eat half as much. That is the secret. Why buy bad ice cream and get no value and wind up actually paying more for it?” he said. “Get the better ice cream. We’ve looked at it, and what I’ve found over the years is that people actually come to Henry’s Ice Cream because we advertise it as homemade and it’s the highest butterfat in the history of mankind, so they’ll make a special trip to come see us because of that.”
He said he could offer a yogurt or low-calorie alternative – and may do so in the future – but doesn’t want his products to be part of a fad.
“There’s nothing like ice cream on a cone. You can’t put Dippin’ Dots on a cone,” Gentry said. “I see that great ice cream will always be something that people choose.”
In addition, Gentry said many ice cream companies have cheapened their formulas over the years because it’s expensive to make. He said he uses the same ingredients he used when he arrived in Plano in 1992.
Gentry said flavors mostly come from requests from chefs but also from in-house testing. Retail customers also offer their input.
“Customers ask us all the time to make ice cream flavors they had as a child and hadn’t seen it on the market, and we do that,” he said.
Henry’s makes about 1,000 flavors every year, and at any given time, around 35 flavors are available in the shop for retail customers. Over his 25 years making ice cream, Gentry said he has made roughly 10,000 different flavors. He said the most popular, surprisingly, is cinnamon.
For the holidays, Henry’s has been mixing up cozier flavors like pumpkin pie, rum raisin and peppermint stick.
Despite the colder weather, Henry’s still sees a balance in sales because families are entertaining and eating in restaurants more often.
“We see a slight drop [during the winter] in retail cone purchases, but our bulk ice cream, like half gallons and pies, go up because of the holiday,” he said. “If there’s a gathering at Thanksgiving or Christmas, the customers come and buy half gallons of the products.”
Although Gentry keeps busy with the approximately 550 restaurants that serve Henry’s Homemade Ice Cream, he plans events throughout the year to give back to the community that welcomed him 16 years ago.
Once Girl Scout Cookie time rolls around each year, Gentry makes out stacks of checks for $7 each in order to buy two boxes from each Scout who walks through the door. Then, each type of cookie earns its own ice cream to be sold to the public, and children and their families are invited to Henry’s on a special night for a free scoop.
Every summer for the past 17 years, Henry’s has hosted a pajama party featuring “celebrity scoopers” to help raise money for cancer research.
“They’re all cancer survivors, so we have boys, girls, babies, Grandma, Grandpa, white, red, black. All ages, colors, religions – it’s transcended by cancer,” Gentry said. “That’s the only night we do tips, and all the money goes to the local cancer research.”
The event is organized by event planner Judy Cordell, a cancer survivor, and every customer who shows up in pajamas gets a free quart of ice cream. Gentry said at least 400 people come out every year and fill the small corner shop.
One wall at Henry’s is lined with awards he has received over the years, including several new ones from this year’s National Ice Cream and Retailers Association convention in November.
He’s taken top awards for Senator Shapiro’s Texas Praline, Payday, My Mom’s Lemon Pie and, of course, vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.
For 2010, Gentry took second in vanilla, second in chocolate, third in best holiday flavor (which was Payday – “every day’s a holiday when you’re getting paid”) and honorable mention for best new flavor, which was angel food-flavored.
Henry’s Wedding Cake, which took first place for Best Holiday Flavor in 2004, was actually served at Gentry’s wedding when he married Carolyn Tolley five and a half years ago.
Gentry met Tolley at a wine tasting, another of his passions.
“She has ice cream for life; that’s how I proposed to her,” he said. “I put the ring on a cherry with a sundae.”
Gentry’s 12-hour days illustrate his love for his work, but the business gets harder every year, he said.
“People try to copy what you did, but I think that you have to put your personality and your passion into it to create the winning formula,” he said. “We’ve pushed our name and our brand so that people recognize it now.
“We’re so passionate about our ice cream and we want everyone to feel the same way. We have so many fans that promote our product for us. We’re blessed in that way.”
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