A new ice cream and coffee venture is coming to a Riverside shopping and dining district.
Screaming Cat Ice Cream & Coffee at 2700 Park St. is the first retail business for Isaac and Elenis Camargo.
The Camargos own Thirdstone Properties, a real estate investment and residential property management company.
The Screaming Cat store is in a space below the Thirdstone Properties offices near southwest Park and King streets.
The shop joins restaurants Lola’s Burrito & Burger Joint, Pattaya Thai Grille, European Street Cafe, Don Eduardo Cocina Mexicana and Cool Moose Cafe in the area.
The couple is from Miami and attended the University of Florida together. After graduating, they moved to Brooklyn, New York, before relocating to Jacksonville to start Thirdstone Properties.
They have no restaurant experience, Isaac Camargo said. He readily admits that they are risk-takers.
“It’s just like our property management business. We didn’t have any experience in that and built it from the ground up. We feel like we can do the same with this. It sounds very ambitious, but we are a very entrepreneurial type couple. So we feel like we can take this on,” he said.
Screaming Cat will have 24 ice cream flavors. The staples will always be available and specialty flavors will be in rotation on the menu.
The shop will sell ice cream by the scoop in bowls and cones. Waffle cones will be made in-house. The shop also will have sundaes, floats, malts and other ice cream desserts. It will serve affogato, which is gelato, espresso and liqueur flavoring.
The couple is are buying the ice cream from Madison, Wisconsin-based Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream Co. The premium ice cream maker whips less air into the product to make it more dense. They’ll have nondairy ice cream as well.
“We’ll have a chocolate chip made with oat milk that is probably even better than the regular chocolate chip with regular milk,” Camargo said.
While deciding what ice cream purveyor to use, they came up with the store’s name.
“We have a cat named Onyx and he tends to be very vocal. We were sampling ice cream, and he jumped up on the dining room table and he screams, as he always does,” Camargo said.
“And we said, ‘Hush, hush you screaming cat.’ We connected screaming and ice cream. It kind of worked. I thought it was a cool funky name and something that we can run with and build a brand around.”
The coffee will be purchased from Pura Bean Coffee Co. of Jacksonville. The roast will be lighter than those from some of the larger chains. They will have a selection of flavorings and will use half-and-half instead of milk.
The store is being designed by Thomas Duke Architect and the general contractor is Alta Land & Contract, Inc. The estimated budget is $140,000 to build out and equip the business.
The city issued a permit June 28 for Jacksonville-based Alta Land & Contract Inc. to renovate the 1,150-square-foot space at a project cost of $79,000.
The coffee side alone is a substantial investment. The espresso machine cost $10,500 and the grinder between $1,800 and $1,900, Camargo said.
“You want something that can grind very quickly and grind consistently. Speaking to other coffee shop owners, it is one of the key ingredients of making really good and a quick cup of coffee. If you get a slow machine you’re going to have a long line of customers,” Camargo said.
They expect to hire a full-time manager and 10 to 12 part-time employees.
They had hoped to be open by now, but they awaited the permit.
The later opening shouldn’t be a detriment, he said.
“We’re in Florida, so I think we’ll be fine. We’re gonna try to get opened up as quickly as possible,” he said.
Initially, the hours will be daily from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The goal is to open daily at 8 a.m. for those wanting coffee before work.
Besides operating two companies, the couple has two children ages 5 years and 6 months.
“What kid wouldn’t want to grow up having parents that own an ice cream shop?” Camargo said.