Kona Ice
One late summer day in 2005, Tony Lamb and his family heard the familiar strains of jaunty music from an ice cream truck waft across their residential neighborhood in the Northern Kentucky community of Union.
The kids came a-runnin’. Lamb’s 3-year-old daughter, Ava, knew sweetness awaited. Her little legs swiftly carried her to the truck for a cool concoction.
But Lamb did not like what he saw.
The ice cream truck was a dilapidated Chevy van from the 1970s with blue smoke billowing from its undercarriage. It was driven by a shirtless, tattooed and pierced man who seemed lackadaisical about his mission. Ava was startled. About $22 later for refreshments for his family with nary a thank-you from the driver, the Lambs had popsicles that suffered from freezer burn. The experience was a complete disappointment.
The event changed Lamb, who was making a decent living as a business consultant working out of Louisville after selling vacuums. He wanted to do better for his wife and three young children and have a job with less traveling. The bad ice cream truck incident led him to a career as founder and owner of a multimillion-dollar shaved-ice franchise business with franchisees in every state except North Dakota.
Kona Ice is its name. The company’s mascot is an animated penguin named Kona. In Hawaiian, “kona” means “dry side” or “lady.”
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Kona Ice
Pick a place where you are most likely to find a most successful shaved-ice business. You might select Waikiki, Jamaica or perhaps the Bahamas? A great guess would be 5945 Centennial Circle in Florence in Northern Kentucky. The 7-acre site a bit down the road from Florence Mall in the heavily developed part of the Boone County community is home to Kona Ice. The business venture became a reality after Lamb went home the evening of the bad ice cream truck experience and pondered what went wrong.
He became obsessed with the idea that he could provide a better service to sweet-toothed children and adults. “I thought, ‘What if that were my truck?’ ” Lamb said. “First, I would want it to be colorful, like Disney World. I would make sure the product is right, and I would treat every customer right. One thing led to another. I got a loan from an associate, and I got into the shaved-ice business.”
On June 21, 2007, Lamb got his first shaved-ice truck. By the end of the year, he had designed and produced five prototypes.
The business began franchising in 2008. Four years later, the company launched the Kona Mini, a smaller version of the Kona Ice truck, to sell shaved ice indoors during the winter months. The company was recognized in Entrepreneur magazine’s Franchise 500 list in 2013. Today, it has about 30,000 employees and 685 franchisees operating trucks across the United States.
Tony’s wife, Susie, is involved in the shaved-ice company. They married in 1992 and have four children—Jake, 31, who runs a department in Kona Ice Korporate; Annie, 28, a wedding photographer who is married to a Kona Ice employee; Jonah, 24, who runs local operations for Kona Ice; and Ava, 22, who works in Kona Ice’s video department.
The company has donated more than $200 million to community-based organizations since its foundation. “We are not close to being done,” said Lamb recently in his large office at Kona Ice Korporate. He keeps a teddy bear nearby that he has had for about 50 years. Pull its string, and it says, “There’s nothing you can’t do.”
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Lamb was born Nov. 2, 1968, in Parkersburg, West Virginia, on the 32nd birthday of his father, Tom Lamb, a former vacuum cleaner executive who now spends every weekday except Fridays at the Kona Ice Korporate offices. The senior Lamb never meets a stranger. He quickly advises husbands to tell their wives every day, “you are the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen” and then tells you how big his son’s heart is for people. Tony said his father encouraged him to be his own boss.
Tony was the youngest of Tom and Beverly Ann Lamb’s four children. He attended Parkersburg High School and the University of Kentucky, where he received a degree in marketing in 1992. During that time, he sold Rainbow vacuum cleaners. In high school, Tony was president of his senior class of 800 students. He played on the football team but was better known for “being funny.” “I was not shy. I sold vacuum cleaners. I could not afford to be shy,” he said.
After graduating from college, Lamb contemplated working as a pharmaceutical representative for about $31,000 a year but instead decided to be a vacuum cleaner salesman with a decent commission. He stayed with Rainbow until 2002, when he became a marketing consultant for businesses. And then came the summer day with the bad ice cream truck, and his future crystallized into shaved ice.
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Unlike typical snow cones that can be bought at a county fair, Kona Ice is a gourmet treat. The ice is shaved in patented machines that cost $3,000, and the nearly 40 flavors include exotic choices such as banana colada, bubblegum blue, strawberry daiquiri, wedding cake, tiger’s blood, Creamsicle, rock & roll and watermelon.
Lamb, who acknowledged he may not be the biggest fan of shaved ice, admitted to liking the strawberry flavor of tiger’s blood.
The truck enables customers to customize their purchase through Kona’s patented Flavorwave system, a dispenser built into the side of the truck that lets them choose as many and as much as they want of the 10 most popular flavors.
Kona Ice
Kona Ice shaved ice contains 40 percent less sugar than regular sugar-water snow cones and can be made of 100 percent fruit juice in participating locations. “You really can’t tell the difference,” Lamb said about the product containing less sugar.
Franchisees can set their own costs, but the typical local cost is $4 for a Klassic Kup, $5 for a King, $6 for Color Changing with $4 refills and $7 for a large Kollectable Kup with $4 refills.
A franchise costs $150,000- $200,000, including the truck, other essential parts and training. The franchisee can buy ice anywhere.
Kona Ice not only has trucks for franchisees to visit neighborhoods but can be hired to serve parties, corporate events and public gatherings.
In March 2020, Lamb launched Travelin’ Tom’s coffee trucks, named after his dad, and he is experimenting with Beverly Ann’s Cookie and Ice Cream trucks, named after his mother.
He ponders even more ways to use mobile trucks.
In November 2023, Lamb was inducted into the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame at a Lexington ceremony. More than 100 of his franchise owners attended the induction.
He said he has many people to thank—his family, his parents, the associate who gave him a loan to start Kona Ice, his franchisees, his employees and, yes, even the driver of the bad ice cream truck.
When asked how he would react if he saw the driver today, Lamb laughed and immediately said, “I’d kiss him right in the mouth and thank him for inspiring me.”
Kona Ice
Food Truck 2.0
Tony Lamb thinks his idea of mobile coffee trucks may prove better than his successful venture with shaved ice. He’s also contemplating a mobile truck to sell warm cookies and ice cream.
“What we are considering is a total realignment of the mobile food truck for franchises and rentals and what we can do for it,” the innovative Lamb said during a recent interview at his Kona Ice Korporate office in Florence. “We are doing it for the masses.”
Travelin’ Tom’s Coffee Truck, which is named after Lamb’s father, Tom Lamb, provides hot and cold coffee. It charges $4 to $7 for iced and frozen coffee and $4 to $5 for hot coffee. The coffee is made fresh in the truck.
Beverly Ann’s Cookie and Ice Cream trucks are in the experimental stage for Lamb’s business. On its five trucks are plastered a vibrant picture of his mother as a pretty young woman.
For its edible pleasantries, the customer has to pay $4 for two cookies (ranging from decadent chocolate chip to premium vanilla extract), $7 for four and $10 for six. The ice cream—vanilla, chocolate or strawberry—costs $3 for one scoop and $5 for two scoops.
An “Ann-Wich,” made up of two cookies and one scoop of ice cream, goes for $6.