Monday September 2, 1985/The Battalion/Page 11
Ice cream
Chicago's DoveBar
a favorite of Yuppies
Associated Press
CHICAGO — The DoveBar may be
pricey, chic and a lavorite taste-treat
of trend-conscious yuppies, but it was
three decades ago that Leo Stefanos
started selling the chocolate-covered
icecream bar for 15 cents.
“They say it’s a yuppie product,"
said Mike Stefanos, S3, son of the I)o-
veBar’s creator. “Why, it’s 30 years
added Stefanos, one of DoveBar
International Inc.’s three board mem
bers.
Today, the bars sell for SI.50 to $2
each and sales are expected to reach
$10million this fiscal year, he said.
The ice cream is much improved
and the chocolate is thicker' than
when his father made the bars at
Dove Candy and Ice Cream, the f atni-
ly'sshopon Chicago's Southwest Side,
Stefanos said in a recent interview.
“It's the hot item, they're my No. 1-
sellingice cream bar,” said Mark Hal
verson, manager of Dotal Market in
downtown Chicago. “They’re very
trendy.”
The lavish, hand-dipped coating is
the DoveBar’s main attraction, say
fans, who include many young urban
professionals, or yuppies.
“The ice cream isn’t that great, but
the chocolate is superb. It's gourmet
food," said food writer Brenda Rot-
zoll, who admits she runs out from
work many afternoons to buy the
bars. “There’s so much chocolate you
can’t eat it without big gobs falling
off."
Greek-born Leo Stefanos created
the DoveBar to satisfy his two small
sons passion for ice cream bars, and
later began offering them to custom
ers, hand-dipping them on the spot,
the younger Stefanos said.
He said his father eventually
owned a string of ice cream parlors
where the bars were sold. Expanded
distribution began in 1980 through
Chicago-area grocery chains. I ne
product, launched nationally in 1984,
now is sold in 4,000 supermarkets and
specialty stores in 17 states, Stefanos
said.
Daily production has jumped from
1,800 bars in 1983’to 70,000. In April,
DoveBar opened a $2 million plant
with 67 employees in suburban Bun-
Ridge.
“It’s been awesome,” he said.
“We’ve had to change gears so often
— machinery, marketing, every
thing.” Stefanos left an accounting
firm and the University of Chicago’s
business school in 1980 to run the
family business.
“But a small business can expand
ouickly,” said Stefanos, who sits on
the board of directors with company
president l^tuis Yasen and Richard
/.achat ias, the 71-year-old backer who
spurred the DoveBar’s going na
tional.
The bars come in five ice-cream fla
vors: chocolate, strawljerry, vanilla,
coffee and coconut.
Stefanos scoffs at rivals who say the
DoveBar is just “a candy bar on a
stick.”
“1 eat them,” he said. “I love them.
They are terrific.”
DoveBars are available in Califor
nia, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Illi
nois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Massachu
setts, New York, New Jersey,
Maryland, Tennessee, Georgia, Flor
ida, Ohio, New Mexico, Oklahoma
and Washington, D.C.
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