Carvel (franchise) facts for kids
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A Carvel franchise location in Canton, Michigan
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | |
| Genre | Ice cream parlor |
| Founded | 1929 in Hartsdale, New York |
| Founder | Tom Carvel |
| Headquarters |
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United States
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Number of locations
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320 |
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Area served
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United States |
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Key people
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Jim Salerno (Chief Brand Officer) Jim Holthouser (CEO) |
| Products | Soft serve, milkshakes, sundaes, frozen treats, cakes |
| Services | Franchising |
| Revenue |  US$67.8 million (2019) |
| Owner | Roark Capital Group |
| Parent | GoTo Foods |
| Footnotes / references https://www.focusbrands.com/leadership/ |
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Carvel is a famous American ice cream company. It is known for its delicious soft-serve ice cream and special ice cream cakes. These cakes often have a yummy layer of "crunchies" inside! Carvel also sells fun ice cream bars and sandwiches. Their slogan is "America's Freshest Ice Cream."
Carvel has many ice cream shops across 16 states in the United States and in Puerto Rico. Most of these shops are in the Northeast United States and Florida. You can often find them in busy places like airports, malls, and sports stadiums. Carvel also sells its popular ice cream cakes in over 8,500 supermarkets.
Since 2001, the company has been owned by Roark Capital Group. It is part of a bigger company called GoTo Foods. As of 2025, Carvel has 326 locations in 16 states and eight countries.
Contents
Fun Ice Cream Treats
Carvel is famous for creating many unique ice cream treats. One popular item is the "Flying Saucer," which is a round ice cream sandwich. They also made the "Icy Wycy," a sherbet treat on a stick.
Other classic treats included the "Brown Bonnet" and "Cherry Bonnet." These were frozen vanilla ice cream cones dipped in a sweet, waxy coating. The "Tortoni" was a cup of vanilla ice cream with toasted coconut and a maraschino cherry. There was also the "Lollapalooza," a cylindrical ice cream on a stick covered with colorful sprinkles.
Carvel's ice cream cakes are very popular. They come in different shapes and sizes, like round cakes and sheet cakes. Some of their most famous character cakes are Cookie Puss and Fudgie the Whale.
Carvel also made special cakes for many holidays. For example, there was a "Flower Basket" for Mother's Day and "Tom the Turkey" for Thanksgiving. The Santa Claus cake even had a two-pointed hat because the same mold was used to make Fudgie the Whale's tail!
In 1998, Carvel introduced the Lil' Love ice cream cake. Commercials for these cakes showed kids celebrating small achievements. These ads always ended with the message: Surprise someone special tonight.
Carvel's Story
Carvel was started by Tom Carvel. He ran the company for its first 60 years. In 1929, Tom borrowed $15 from his future wife, Agnes. He used this money to buy an ice cream truck.
One weekend in 1934, Tom's truck got a flat tire in Hartsdale, New York. He decided to sell his ice cream right there. Even though some of it was melting, he sold everything very quickly! This made him realize that selling soft ice cream from a fixed spot was a great idea.
In his first year, he earned over $3,500. By 1937, he had a permanent soft-serve stand at the Hartsdale spot. He even had a freezer to make his own ice cream.
During World War II, Tom Carvel worked at ice cream stands at Fort Bragg. He learned a lot about refrigeration. He even invented and patented a special freezer called the "Custard King."
Tom sold many of his freezers to other people. But he noticed that some buyers weren't running their businesses well. This led him to think about a new way of doing business. He decided to help his freezer customers run their shops better. This is how he came up with the idea of franchising.
Franchising and Advertising
In 1949, Carvel started letting other people open Carvel stores. This is called franchising. By the early 1950s, there were over 50 Carvel stores. New store owners would go through an 18-day training program. It was called the "Carvel College of Ice Cream Knowledge."
In 1955, Tom Carvel started recording his own radio commercials. He decided to do this after an announcer forgot to mention a new store's location. Tom thought he could do better, so he went to the radio station and recorded the next ad himself.
From then on, Tom Carvel recorded almost all of Carvel's commercials. He even had his own studio at the company's main office. He became a well-known person in the area because of his unique voice.
Tom Carvel's commercials were special because they sounded very natural. He had a distinctive "gravelly" voice, and he didn't rehearse what he would say. His ads often ended with "Thank You." Television commercials started in 1971. They showed Carvel products and employees in the stores.
Carvel has always had promotions. In 1936, they had a "Buy One Get One Free" deal. They also partnered with other groups, like the New York Yankees. A very popular promotion was "Wednesday is Sundae at Carvel!" which offered discounts.
Growing the Business
In 1956, Tom Carvel changed his original Hartsdale store into an "Ice Cream Supermarket." He added freezers with pre-made cakes and treats that customers could pick out themselves.
Carvel also tried different ways to sell ice cream from vehicles. They experimented with a scooter in 1957 and a special truck called the "Carvehicle" around 1958.
In 1967, Carvel bought a motel in Yonkers, New York. They renamed it the Carvel Inn. It became their main office and a place for annual meetings with store owners.
In the late 1970s, Carvel said its ice cream machines didn't add air to the ice cream, unlike other companies. When people became more interested in healthy eating, Carvel offered low-fat desserts like Thinny-Thin and frozen yogurt called Lo-Yo.
By 1985, Carvel had 865 stores and was earning over $300 million.
In 1989, Tom Carvel sold the company to Investcorp for $80 million. The headquarters moved to Farmington, Connecticut in 1991. In 2001, Roark Capital Group bought most of Carvel Corporation.
For most of its history, Carvel was mainly on the East Coast of the United States. Now, Carvel products are sold in about 9,500 supermarkets across many states. They also partner with other brands, like making ice cream cakes with Mars' M&M's characters.
The original Carvel store in Hartsdale closed in 2008 and was later taken down to build a Japanese restaurant.
In 2015, Carvel started opening stores that combine with other brands like Auntie Anne's and Cinnabon.
As of 2022, there were 358 Carvel stores around the world. In 2023, the Carvel website reported 331 locations in the US. Most of these, 246, were in New York and New Jersey.
See also
- Cinnabon Swirl
- List of dairy product companies in the United States
- List of frozen custard companies
