Geri-Martha O’Hara and her husband Ryan have worked as chefs at some of the best restaurants in the country. Geri-Martha served as a pastry chef at Bottega for several years, but had another dream – ice cream! Looking to open a spot with the best ice cream AND the best service, Geri-Martha and her husband founded Big Spoon Creamery. What began as a pop-up shop in 2014 is now expanding into its third brick-and-mortar, opening in Huntsville this summer. Meet our newest FACE of Birmingham, Geri-Martha O’Hara.
Meet our newest FACE of Birmingham, Geri-Martha O’Hara of Big Spoon Creamery.
You’ve worked in top restaurants across the country. What inspired you to leave that behind for the ice cream business?
I was a pastry chef and loved all the science — all the fun things and how versatile ice cream is. After internships in New York, I came back and started working for Chef Stitt. At Bottega, I really honed in on pastry and fine-tuning everything. I loved making all the sorbets and ice creams because I could highlight all the local produce we were getting in from the farmers. It was one perfect bite in a spoon, and I loved it. I thought we should do a fun ice cream shop in Birmingham; there isn’t one here. Birmingham needs it to highlight all of its awesome farmers.
How did you learn to make top-tier ice cream?
The Secrets of Ice Cream; Ice Cream Without Secrets by Angelo Corvitto is very scientific, breaking down all the chemistry and things that make up proper ice cream for commercial sale. It’s intense and takes a while to digest, but I learned everything from that book.
I take desserts I’ve had either at other restaurants — or that we’ve created as a team — and I love to incorporate those into one bite of ice cream. That’s probably where I’ve had the most fun.
How do you use Big Spoon to help others and to serve your community?
Ice cream is our vehicle to be a light and make someone’s day better — our guests and team. We pour into and invest in our team — our leaders, front-of-house team, and individual staff. We grow and help them, and then they can turn and love on our guests and help them have a better day by giving them great service.
We follow the book Unreasonable Hospitality. We’ve read that together as a team to learn more about how to go above and beyond in hospitality. We encourage our front-of-house staff to find opportunities to do something unreasonable for a guest throughout the day. We have a Slack channel so our team can share their unreasonable experiences that day. It’s really fun to equip our team to go out there and make someone’s day better. And we are always helping the community with fundraisers or gift cards. We love Birmingham. We love being a part of this community.
Geri-Martha and her husband Ryan started Big Spoon Creamery with $500 and a dream. “Ice cream is just our vehicle to be a light and to make someone’s day better,” she says. Big Spoon opened its first brick-and-mortar location in Avondale at the MAKEbhm building in 2017.
What does “unreasonable hospitality” look like for you and your team?
Recently, we had a family of regulars whose child was in the ICU at Children’s Hospital. We don’t deliver ice cream, but our team got some stuff together — a gift from one of their friends — and we brought it to them.
We have incredible guests that are loyal to us, so we are often involved in their lives. They celebrate birthdays and other events with us, like being cancer-free. We see a lot of people come in after treatments.
We had a bus of 13-year-old girls that were going to a Taylor Swift dance party at Avondale. Our Director of Operations put on a Taylor Swift playlist, and those girls lost their minds. They were dancing and having the best time ever.
What makes your ice cream special?
All the research I’ve done for the formulas. [It’s about] having the right formula and pairing that with local produce – it’s incredible. Working for Frank [Stitt] at Bottega, I met all the farmers when they delivered produce. I had relationships with them over my five years there, so I know who has the best strawberries, blueberries, or apples. Our strawberry farmer right now is Trent Boyd from Cullman Harvest Farm. Every year, we know Trent will come in at the end of April with the best strawberries. When starting with the best strawberries, it’s not hard to make incredible ice cream.
We schedule our menu around what’s ripe and in season. We love working with our farmers, being a blessing to them, and supporting them. It just makes our state that much better.
Also, we use European products like Valrhona chocolate, and we don’t use any dyes or yucky ingredients. It’s important to us to use quality ingredients. I have two boys, so I’m passionate about giving my kids good things to eat and growing their palates.
We use local milk — a new partnership with Blue Ribbon Dairy. We’d been searching for a local dairy farm for years and finally met Michaela Sanders at Blue Ribbon. She’s a fourth-generation dairy farmer down in Tallahassee.
Our ice cream, which many people don’t know, is formulated to be more like gelato. It doesn’t have as much air as American ice cream, so it has a richer flavor.
How are you ensuring your new Huntsville location has the same hospitable feel and great products as your original location?
We have a Director of Operations who oversees our shop leads at each shop — Homewood, Avondale, and Huntsville. We already have our shop lead in Huntsville, and she’s been down to work here in Avondale. She came and worked in production to get that feel. It’s all about spending time with our team and immersing them in our culture so they can take that to our guests. And we will make all of our products from our Avondale kitchen and deliver them to the Huntsville location, so we know the product will be great.
Once a pastry chef at Bottega, Geri-Martha says she loves the science behind making great ice cream. Here she’s pictured teaching at Rane Culinary Science Center.
What do you like to do when you’re not working?
I love being with my family. My two boys are five and one. We like playing outside and enjoying the weather. We recently went to City Walk and played on the playground, which was really fun. Rotary Trail is really beautiful. We live out in Hoover, so we love the Moss Rock Preserve.
What are some of your favorite restaurants?
Bottega and Chez Fonfon, obviously. And I love El Barrio and Slims.
Do you have any favorite places to shop?
I love walking in the downtown Homewood area, and I love Wild Things. She does fresh flower arrangements, but she also has a lot of fun things in her little shop that are great for gifts.
What’s the best advice you have to offer?
Start small and grow slow. We started in our driveway with $500 and a dream. We went from a pop-up to a storefront in three years with no investors, and we didn’t take out a loan. Ryan and I just worked hard, and we built the relationships. We had an ice cream club where we delivered ice cream to people’s houses. So, we met all of our customers face to face. When we opened the shop, we already had this loyal following of guests who were excited to have a place to come and celebrate us; they were a part of the process, so it was their success as well. Starting small and doing things the right way may take longer, but it’s more stable and fruitful.
Name three things you can’t live without.
Ice cream, obviously, really great local coffee like Non-Fiction or June, and my Peloton bike.
All photography courtesy of CJ Shaver Photography.
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