Business Spotlight: Evelyn’s Confections
By Madeline Otten, Correspondent
There’s a new shop in town located in the Food Lion shopping center near Lake Monticello’s Turkeysag gate. Darryl Hoelscher, owner of Evelyn’s Confections, opened his ice cream shop Aug. 1 with a variety of sweet flavors for the community to taste.
“I wanted to do something fun and I get to have great conversations with the clientele,” said Hoelscher.
Evelyn’s Confections has a variety of options on its menu for customers to choose from. It offers vanilla and chocolate soft serve with the choice of added syrup, milkshakes, sundaes, and razzles, which are similar to blizzards, with added candy pieces.
Hoelscher also recently introduced smoothies and will be creating ice cream cakes in-house in the near future. Further down the road, Hoelscher plans on serving confections, so keep an eye out.
The most popular items on the menu are the flavor bursts of caramel and mocha cappuccino. The machine currently has eight syrups that can be combined with vanilla or chocolate soft serve. Other flavors include strawberry, butter pecan, cool mint, green apple, banana ripple, and tropical orange.
The machine for the flavor bursts has two separate hoppers and two barrels, which allows the machine to store both the vanilla and chocolate mix. The mix is a formula of different ingredients that Hoelscher and his son taste-tested themselves before selecting the perfect creation. Once the mix is poured into the machine, it’s ready to dispense soft serve in 10 minutes.
Hoelscher praised the spot, which previously housed Frost Bites, for its location. “The traffic going into Food Lion and Subway is pretty heavy, so the location is great,” he said. With the different restaurants in the shopping plaza and across the street, Evelyn’s Confections offers a treat for those who have a sweet tooth.
Hoelscher moved from Texas 30 years ago. He has lived all over central Virginia, in Fredericksburg, Charlottesville, the Zion Crossroads area, and currently in Scottsville. Before running his own business, Hoelscher was in the automotive industry working as a redistributor for Fiat parts with Autosport.
Hoelscher came up with the name Evelyn’s Confections with inspiration from his aunt. “Her funding is what allowed me to open the store,” said Hoelscher.
Now that Hoelscher is his own boss, his number one responsibility is to make sure the customers are happy. His other responsibilities include making sure that his employees are paid and have a safe work environment for both them and the customers.
“I follow the tell-see-do management style, which is where you tell the employees what to do, you then show them what they need to do, and then they do it,” said Hoelscher. “I allow the employees to learn on their own and correct their mistakes. I’ll step in when I am needed.”
In the next 10 years, Hoelscher wants to expand his business. He hopes to gain 15 to 20 more locations within a 70-mile radius. “I didn’t start the store to run just one, I want a few more locations. That’s the goal,” he said. There is no set date for a grand opening, but he is planning one for December.
Hoelscher has been in customer service his entire life and will use his past experience to keep in touch with the community. He has established a friendly environment within his shop and will do whatever it takes to make sure the customers leave happy and with the knowledge that they will return.
