My wife and I are trying to raise funds for a small, but entirely unique business selling gelato and our homemade, artisan chocolate candy bars and ganache jars. No, selling gelato and sweets aren’t exactly unique, lots of people do it. It is how and where we are doing it that will make it like no other gelato establishment out there! 

We have been self-employed for quite sometime and are looking to have something that we can grow into a potential franchise with multiple locations out there in various tourist town across the country.

My wife has been an owner and operator of successful catering company before selling off her side of the business to her partner. She is currently self-employed and also is a certified mortgage underwriter. She has done everything from Parks and Recreation, Executive Assistant in an investment firm, to Executive Director at an animal shelter. She has also been an owner, along with myself, in a couple of our retail businesses.

As for myself, I have worked in retail, pretty much my entire life. I have been a top salesman in companies like Guitar Center, Best Buy, and Hot Topic. I have also been a musician for over 30 years and have traveled many places and have met many rock stars. I’ve been everything from an Associate to a Store Manager before I went into work for myself. I owned and operated a successful landscaping company in Texas for well over a decade before I sold it to fund opening 2 retail shops in Texas. Before moving to Arizona, I sold the businesses to help purchase our home and fund another retail business here. During that time my wife and I got to learn the area and what really worked in a famous tourist town. We started making gourmet chocolate and our sales started to climb in our store here. Once our lease was up, we decided to not renew with a plan to open a sweet shop of some sort. As we waited for an idea to develop after more research, we got ourselves into Renaissance Festivals all over the country with our gelato and homemade gourmet chocolate. All year long we sell, and sell these items well, at these Renaissance Fairs. We’d love to establish a home base where we live while still doing our renaissance festivals at the same time. As success comes to our Red Rockin Gelato location we are trying to fund here, we’d like to open more locations at tourist hot spots around the country like Jackson Hole, Wyoming, or Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

What we discovered in living in a tourist town is that if you have a unique, yet simple business that somehow caters to food or snack products, your profit center can be off the charts. Especially if you are providing a unique atmosphere for tourists to go to. I noticed here in Sedona, that even a plain business that sells the right items, gets lots of YouTube Videos, reviews, traffic, pictures, and all around social media success, just for having a unique atmosphere.

I will explain what we need the money for in a moment, but I want to clarify the idea. We want to have a gelato and sweet location when people walk into it they will instantly never forget it. All over the inside of our store location, we will have wall murals surrounding the entirety of the store of Guitar Rock Gods or Rock Gods. For example, along the walls you will see large murals of Eddie Van Halen, Dimebag Darryl Abbot, Randy Rhodes, James Hetfield, Dave Mustaine, Gene Simmons, Paul McCartney, Steve Vai, etc. Along the walls will be various record covers of various rock bands through history. In designated spaces, there will be autographed guitars by famous rock bands in display cases and various autographed paraphernalia scattered throughout the business. Like autographed drumheads, posters, pictures, etc. The dining tables will be guitar shaped with Fender or Gibson bar stools for patrons to sit on around them. In the center of the place will be two love seats with a guitar shaped table in the middle of them for lounging. Guitar shaped lights will hang down from the ceiling over the patrons tables as they eat their sweets. There will be a couple of TV’s on the walls showing rock concerts from around the world as well as an overhead speaker system playing rock music at just the right level. Our employees will be dressed in black, mechanics style work shirts that will have our logo on the back with the saying “Red Rockin in Sedona, AZ”. As other locations open, the location on shirts at said location will change. Even the bathrooms will be interesting!

We will serve up our gourmet gelato and chocolate goodness, as well as gourmet coffee and other beverages, to the patrons in a relaxed, just come as you are environment that will surely always be a must stop and see for any visitor that ventures into Northern Arizona. We will be that after dinner treat that tourists will come too after taking advantage of Sedona’s booming restaurant market. There will be more to the business, but that is the nuts and bolts of it.

The funding we receive will go to securing a location, paying first, last and security on it, as well as securing any permits needed, along with any remodeling that needs to be done on the inside. We will also set aside 6 months of capital from the funding to stay on top of expenses as we build that business. Funding will go towards all decorations like the wall murals and installation thereof, supplies, and product needed to fill the businesses needs. Funding will go towards business sign for outside, commercial freezer, gelato display case, chocolate display case, coffee makers, dining tables, lighting, televisions, display counter, advertising, any or all contractor or handyman work that may be needed, and various surprise business costs that always seem to come up.

I haven’t pinned up any images as of yet, but I most certainly can do so upon request. Red Rockin Gelato will not just be a must stop, it will be an experience! Please give us a serious look! This is our retirement plan!