verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . may 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message type wholly owned subsidiary industry ice cream founded 1929 headquarters farmington connecticut united states products ice cream ice cream cakes number of employees 1 000 parent focus brands website www.carvel.com carvel is an ice cream franchise owned by focus brands . carvel is best known for their soft serve ice cream and ice cream cakes which feature a layer of distinctive crunchies . it also sells a variety of novelty ice cream bars and ice cream sandwiches . contents 1 history 2 novelty ice creams 3 franchising and advertising 4 today 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit carvel logo from 1989 to 2012 carvel was founded and run by tom carvel for its first 60 years . in 1929 carvel borrowed 15 200 today 1 from his future wife agnes and used it to build and begin operating an ice cream truck . over memorial day weekend of 1934 carvel s truck suffered a flat tire in hartsdale new york and carvel started selling his custard at the site of the breakdown the parking lot of a pottery store . within two days carvel had sold his entire stock much of it partly melted and realized that both a fixed location and soft as opposed to hard frozen desserts were potentially good business ideas . in his first year there he grossed over 3 500 . by 1937 he had a custard stand at the hartsdale site with a freezer which allowed him to make his own frozen custard . by 1939 gross was over 6 000 . the original hartsdale store was closed on sunday october 5 2008 . in the early 1940s tom carvel traveled selling custard at carnivals while his wife agnes ran the hartsdale location . during world war ii he ran the ice cream stands at fort bragg in north carolina gaining additional expertise in refrigeration technology . he soon invented and patented his own freezer the custard king and in 1947 sold 71 freezers at 2 900 each . some of the freezer purchasers defaulted on payments on the units and upon investigation carvel found that they were not running their businesses efficiently choosing poor locations and not always maintaining high health standards . carvel decided that the best way to correct the situation was to participate in running the operations of his freezer customers ; he later claimed this led him to develop the concept of franchising . novelty ice creams edit fudgie the whale carvel popularized various ice cream novelty items such as the flying saucer a circular ice cream sandwich the icy wycy a paper cone of sherbet on a stick brown bonnet and cherry bonnet frozen vanilla ice cream on a sugar cone dipped in a sweet waxy confection the tortoni a cup of vanilla ice cream covered with toasted coconut and topped with a maraschino cherry and the lollapalooza cylindrical ice cream on a stick covered with colored sprinkles as well as the mamapalooza and papapalooza . the mainstays of carvel s line of ice cream cakes were 7 8 9 10 and 12 rounds 10 x14 and 12 x17 sheet cakes and the carvelog a log shaped cake made in a cylindrical mold . in addition to cookie puss fudgie the whale and hug me the bear there were special cakes for most major holidays including a flower basket for mother s day hoot the owl for june graduations dumpy the pumpkin and wicky the witch for halloween tom the turkey for thanksgiving seamus the leprechaun or cookie o puss for st. patrick s day and santa claus or a snow man for christmas . most of these were made from one of a limited number of molds ; the santa claus cake had a two pointed hat because the mold was ordinarily inverted and used the rest of the year to make fudgie the whale who had a tail . their primary differences from products available year round were the designs on the icing . carvel introduced the lil love ice cream cake on march 30 1998 . the commercials which first appeared in its introduction show small children in special situations such as losing a baby tooth starring in a class play getting an a in a school class and getting new glasses sung to the tune of ta ra ra boom de ay . a mother presents the new cake to celebrate . all ads carry the tag line surprise someone special tonight . franchising and advertising edit carvel franchise canton michigan in 1949 carvel began franchising under the name carvel dairy freeze . by the early 1950s the company had 25 stores . new franchisees undertook an 18 day training program at the carvel college of ice cream knowledge and were sent an in house magazine called the shopper s road . in addition carvel provided building plans for franchises which were initially stand alone glass fronted stores . in 1955 tom carvel began to record his own radio commercials . an unsubstantiated anecdote relates that he was driving in new york city and heard a commercial for a new carvel s store which did not mention the new store s location . convinced he could do better he drove to the radio station and did the next commercial himself . true or not from 1955 onwards carvel recorded nearly all of the chain s advertising eventually maintaining an in house production studio at the headquarters offices and becoming something of a regional celebrity . carvel s commercials stood out and raised brand awareness primarily through their lack of sophistication . carvel had a distinctive gravelly voice lacking the slick sound of most professional voice over artists and all his narration was unrehearsed . his wording was conversational with commercials frequently ending with the words thank you . television commercials aired primarily in the tri state area of new york new jersey and connecticut began in 1971 . accompanied by the familiar tom carvel narration footage showed the products and employees in the stores ; very few graphics or effects were used . promotions were part of carvel s practices from their earliest days . in 1936 they had a buy one get one free promotion and in later years had various contests . they were an early adopter of corporate sponsorship of various events and tie in promotions including a tie in with the new york yankees . a long running and well known campaign was the wednesday is sundae at carvel discount . in 1956 carvel transformed the hartsdale location into their first ice cream supermarket by adding freezer cases containing these and other pre made cakes and novelty items which customers could pick out and buy immediately . also in 1955 carvel began its lease back land offer program in which a potential investor could buy land build a franchise and then lease it back to the corporation . carvel experimented with various ice cream vehicle options for most of their early history . vehicle concepts included a scooter circa 1957 and a custom truck the carvehicle for which they applied for several patents circa 1958 . a dispute with franchisees came to a head in 1962 . independent owners attempted to buy products from outside the corporate supply chain in conflict with their contracts maintaining that the company was deliberately overcharging them . carvel argued that the franchisees were trying to use inferior ingredients . as well as the immediate impact on corporate cash flow this hurt the corporate image dropping the chain to 175 stores . when the corporation tried to enforce this contract the federal trade commission sued them for restraint of trade ; legal proceedings reached the supreme court of the united states in 1964 with the corporation emerging victorious . in 1967 the corporation bought the westchester town house motel on tuckahoe road in yonkers new york and renamed it the carvel inn converting it for use as corporate headquarters while still operating it as a hotel providing them with a conference center for the annual franchisee conventions . during the late 1970s carvel attempted to distinguish itself from other purveyors of soft serve ice cream by claiming that its ice cream machines did not infuse the product with air unlike the competition . during the 1970s when dieting and fitness became more popular carvel began offering a low fat frozen dessert called thinny thin thinny thin for your fatty fat friends and a frozen yogurt product called lo yo . from 1973 to 1975 carvel published a promotional comic book . in 1983 saturday night live parodied carvel s ad campaigns during its season 9 episode 7 show with joe piscopo portraying tom carvel becoming increasingly troubled by a franchisee s line of x rated christmas cakes shaped like breasts buttocks testicles and penises . 2 the same year the beastie boys released their first single cooky puss which included audio of the rap band making prank phone calls to a carvel store . by 1985 there were 865 stores with an income of over 300 million . 3 in the late 1980s and early 1990s howard stern used a vocal harmonizer to imitate the outer space voice of cookie puss that was used in carvel s tv advertisements . stern also made frequent references to longtime co worker fred norris s cluelessness and cheapness in having once given his mother a cookie puss cake as a mother s day gift . in 2013 wwe wrestler the rock mentioned carvel as well as rival dairy queen and its cookie puss cake during a segment on an episode of wwe raw with the cookie puss name used as an insult to cm punk who rock successfully challenged for the wwe championship . today edit in 1989 an aging tom carvel sold the corporation to investcorp for over 80 million . in 1991 headquarters was moved to farmington connecticut . on december 11 2001 roark capital group a private equity firm purchased a controlling interest in carvel corporation from investcorp . investcorp became a minority share holder . 4 carvel was for most of its history a regional business most strongly based on the east coast of the united states . as the business climate has changed so has some of the focus of the brand . there are as of 2016 approximately 400 retail franchises and food service locations 5 far fewer than at their peak . carvel branded products are available in over 9 500 supermarkets . celebration foods has pushed the brand s presence from 30 states in 2004 to 49 in 2008 allowing them to form merchandising partnerships with national brands such as ice cream cakes featuring mars s m & m s characters . focus brands is based in atlanta georgia celebration foods is based in new britain connecticut . in august 2007 the current owner of the original carvel location in hartsdale revealed that he had applied for permission to knock down the store and develop a retail strip on the property . 6 7 in march 2009 the hartsdale store was demolished to make way for a japanese restaurant . see also edit list of dairy product companies in the united states references edit federal reserve bank of minneapolis community development project . consumer price index estimate 1800 . federal reserve bank of minneapolis . retrieved november 10 2015 . watch carvel ice cream from saturday night live . nbc . callahan tom december 1 1985 . ice cream tycoon tom carvel ; a sweet job with sour notes . the new york times . p. 7 . roark capital press release archived july 15 2011 at the wayback machine . carvel franchising