Buzzing Into Ice Cream Cones All Summer Long

This Saturday, B-Line Ice Cream‘s pop-up shop is opening for the summer season at Narrowsburg Union. Locally produced from honey Sullivan County honey, B-Line Ice Cream is made fresh every week and tastes beyond amazing.   We had the opportunity to talk to Mark Randall, B-Line Ice Cream’s founder and chief ice cream maker, to get the inside “scoop” on his expanding ice cream business.

If you’ve never tried honey ice cream you’ve never truly lived.

How a Hobby Turned Into Business

Like many entrepreneurs in Sullivan County, Mark Randall’s journey began with the purchase of a house (in his case near Henning’s Local) and a full embrace of the Catskills lifestyle.  Mark was initially drawn to farming but realistically needed something that could be managed on the weekends, because he continued to work in the city during the week.  He remembered that his Uncle had kept bees and he’d always thought that was a cool and interesting hobby. So he signed up for an introduction to beekeeping class from the Cornell Cooperative Extension and immediately fell knew he found his calling.

I’ll be honest with you, I will be stealing Mark’s ice cream social idea this summer (even if only for the immediate family).

Ice Cream Socials for Everyone

As a child, Mark loved how his dad always made ice cream for celebratory events. It was such a great memory for him that he and his husband decided to continue the tradition by throwing annual ice cream socials for all of their friends. This ice cream social parties gave Mark the opportunity to experiment making different types of ice cream and, now that he had his own honey on hand, to combine the two things he loved most!  The feedback was so positive that Mark knew he had come up with something that was ready to be taken to the next level.

The only thing better than hone ice cream is a honey ice cream SANDWICH.

Building the Dream While Living in Reality

Mark’s vision for B-Line is grand, encompassing a full fledged line of national honey ice creams that are locally produced and made with local honey and super high quality ingredients.  It would be like wine where the ice cream is super regionally produced instead of made in one place and distributed across the country.

He also dreams of creating a bee education center where people can come and learn about bees, hang out with bees and understand the whole process.  And of course they could try the ice cream!

The reality is that producing ice cream made with honey is actually quite challenging.  That’s because honey is super expensive, costing more than all of the other ingredients in ice cream combined.  Sugar, for example, wholesales at $0.40/lb. while honey wholesales for $4.00/lb.  So ultimately Mark will need to decide if he wants to try and go big with a mass market price or focus on producing a fine artisanal product and keeping the product special.

Like wine, or like good coffee, the flavor of honey is actually quite complex. We live in a part of the country that has great flowers that makes great honey.

Creating Your Own Definition of Success

According to Mark, we live in a culture where the definition of success is about scale and quantity over quality. Selling in every Whole Foods will deem him a success, but that’s not what he is interested in.

Honey, like wine, or like good coffee, has flavor that is actually quite complex and is specific to where it is produced. We live in a part of the country that happens to have great flowers that make amazing honey.  That means if you want to try ice cream made with local honey you have to go to Sullivan County to get it. It also means if you are buying ice cream in Wisconsin it will taste different because the bees there produce honey that tastes different.

Mark believes people will like and want the specificity of a locally produced product, because it’s not all the same.  If he can do that on a national level that would be great.  His ultimate definition of success is producing ice cream made with local honey and made with the highest quality ingredients.

One bee only makes 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey. So for one teaspoon of honey it takes 12 bees over their entire lifetime.

What’s With Narrowsburg and Bees?

Narrowsburg has become the global center of people interested in bees (or at least the Catskills center).  In addition to B-Line Ice Cream, Narrowsburg is home to 2 Queens Honey, Honey Bee Fest, and “Good of the Hive” bee mural painted on the post office.

B-Line Ice Cream will be at Narrowsburg Union all summer!

Where to Find Mark Randall and B-Line Ice Cream

Starting Saturday, June 13 at 10am you can find B-Line Ice Cream at Narrowsburg Union:

Friday 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Saturday 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Sunday: 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Narrowsburg Union
7 Erie Avenue
Narrowsburg, New York 12764
Located on the Bridge Street side of the Union.

If you have a hard time picking a flavor Mark suggests starting with plain Honey, which is their top-seller.  Ice cream sandwiches are also incredibly popular so perhaps something to look forward to at your next visit.

Please tell us what you think. We really want to know!

Tell us what you think!

Please comment below if you try B-Line Ice Cream or visit their pop-up shop at Narrowsburg Union and let us know how it goes!  Or if you want to open a business, what would it be?  Find all of Brooklyn to the Catskills‘ recommendations in the Life section of our site.  We’d love to hear what you think about our other content too!