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Your A-List: Best Locally Owned Business
Austin prides itself on keeping it local. Maybe you’ve heard of that whole Keep Austin Weird movement? Well seemingly at the forefront of that movement for years has been the eclectic home of 14 percent butter fat ice cream, Amy’s, with 28 percent of the vote, winner of the Your A-List poll for Best Locally Owned Business.
Amy’s started out as a partnership between Amy Miller (now Simmons) and her partner Scott Shaw, who launched the original shop on Guadalupe Street on the backs of some creative vision and a hot check. More than 20 years later, with Shaw having moved on to pursue other interests, Amy’s is dominating the Austin ice cream scene with 10 stores, and a few more in Houston and San Antonio.
What makes Amy’s so awesome? Well, beyond the 14 percent butterfat, it’s probably the creative spirit and joy of ice cream that is so pervasive in each of the Amy’s location. The stores have a unique history of asking applicants to express their creativity on paper bags when applying for jobs.
Simmons wants her employees to be as creative as the business itself, which has made a name for itself thanks in part to its community involvement, kitschy decor and, not the least, the trademark photo booths. The old-timey black-and-white photo booths in the stores allow friends, couples and families to save their memories on celluloid, ice creamy smiles and all.
Others receiving votes
- Waterloo, 14 percent
- Daily Juice, 11 percent
- Therapy, 9 percent
- Homeslice, 9 percent
- Hoover’s, 7 percent
- Aviary, 5 percent
- Birds Barbershop, 3 percent
- Spiderhouse, 3 percent
- Service Menswear, 3 percent
- Ruta Maya, 2 percent
- I Love Video, 2 percent
- Flipnotics, 2 percent
- Gene’s Po-boys, 1 percent
- Creatures, < 1 percent
Write-in votes: Avant, Bombs Away, Chez Nous, Chez Zee, Craigo’s, Freytag’s Florist, Guero’s, Hotel San Jose, Hudson’s on the Bend, Jovita’s, Las Manitas, Magnolia Cafe, Maudie’s, Moonshine, Polvo’s, Schlotzsky’s, Taco Xpress, Top Notch, Vulcan Video
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