Bring Noona’s Ice Cream Bakeshop to Life!

**Please refer to this link here for rewards based on your contribution. Thank you!**

Eat your heart out — From slinging ice cream pints across the country to opening an ice cream bakeshop in the East Village! Your one & only ice cream noona is bringing that sweet edge, this time with more than just ice cream. Coupled with her first love (of baking), you know it’s gonna hit the spot. <3

photo: Shantel (my right hand) & I in front of future shop.

Message from Hannah Bae:

Hi Everyone!

As you may or may not know, noona means big sister in Korean and I started Noona’s in 2016 out of a passion for making and sharing ice cream alongside a need for a bigger, more inclusive ice cream selection in our food stores. If you can rewind back to 2016 and any year before that, it was impossible to find Asian ice cream flavors unless it was at an Asian grocer. Noona’s exists, because I wanted to see flavors that represented my Asian-American background in the mainstream and knew that I could use my skills to be the one to create that space in the marketplace. So, I started making my own ice cream and flavors. I also wanted to see quality and more real whole ingredients (not just flavorings) in ice cream, so I made it a focus to learn and seek more knowledge on ingredient sourcing and building relationships with farmers.

In the summer of 2016, I took a leap of faith and launched Noona’s at Hester St Fair on the LES (Lower East Side of Manhattan) on the day of the annual ice cream contest, and won best ice cream flavor for our Toasted Rice ice cream. With that win and being written up about in various articles, Noona’s quickly caught the attention of local store buyers and grew a cult following for my Toasted Rice ice cream. With the opportunity to work with retail stores, I jumped at it and started packing my ice cream into pints and grew my list of stockists by going store to store sharing why Noona’s should be on their shelves. From there, I was able to grow enough volume and bring my recipes to a manufacturer and work with distributors after 2 years of churning, packing, delivering and shipping ice cream all by myself. Those days were finally past me, and I could finally get more than 3 hours of sleep. But with no partners or investors, I didn’t leap at opening up a brick & mortar and continued to grow Noona’s in an unconventional manner. I grew Noona’s as a wholesale ice cream company, with our channels of sales coming from working with retail stores and shipping ice cream nationwide direct-to-consumer via orders from noonasicecream.com and third party platforms. I believe slow and steady wins the race at the end, despite all the things you see nowadays with everyone worried about what other people think: if they don’t grow big fast they’ll be forgotten or if not enough people know them is that the same as no one knowing them so they must not be that great or if not enough eyeballs are on them do they even matter then because god forbid they aren’t seen by the right people… Here’s the thing: If you don’t know Noona’s yet, I’ve strangely always been okay with that. You’ll find out soon enough. And it’s true, because that’s just what happens when you put in the work and believe in yourself. Some of the best things in life take a bit more time.

With that, I’m truly excited to share the news that I recently decided to take another scary leap of faith and open my own little ice cream bakeshop so that I can bring so many of the things I’m passionate about under one roof. Before making ice cream, there was baking, my actual first love. And then poetry and art became my saving grace in my teen years. So much of myself went into birthing the design of Noona’s logo, energy and style, and I mention this only because it is with great sadness but also with great relief and joy to also share that along with opening the new shop, Noona’s will undergo a rebrand. I will be moving on from our cute colorful little noona girl on a cone logo and creating a space that tells Noona’s story in a way that weaves my other passions along with it. It’s just part of the evolution of Noona’s. It’s gonna be Noona’s 2.0 and I truly believe people will love and appreciate it because even though it’s gonna look different believe me it comes from the same place as OG Noona’s. And for those that are attached to the little noona mascot, I’ll be sure to have a little noona plushie in the shop.

As my ice cream bakeshop is built, it requires quite a bit. I decided to continue to not have any outside investors at this time, because I do think it can mess with your authenticity, independence and overall vision. This is why I started this Gofundme and am asking for your support to bring Noona’s next chapter to life. As a native New Yorker, I truly want Noona’s to be for this community for a long time. With costs rising and the estimate for building out the bakery/ice cream shop being higher than other business types, I’ve invested my own savings but I also need your help to get across the finish line. The money raised through Gofundme will fund:

- Build out construction costs: materials, general contractor, plumbing, electrical, mechanical

- Oven, mixers, refrigerators, freezers, ice cream machine and other ice cream equipment

- Espresso machine and grinder

- Hiring and building our team

Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my GoFundMe and believing in Noona’s! I believe that I’m building something special and unique. Most importantly, I believe Noona’s is needed in this world, and the fact that it has brought so much joy and inspiration to so many people throughout the years gives me more of a reason to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m blessed to have many passions in life and a professional love. As someone who always has been and in some ways still is the oddball/the odd one out, I’ve found that carving my own way suits me. Now that I’ve carved my own way for some time, I can’t wait to welcome you all into my whimsical world of sweets! :)

So many of you have been so generous and sweet to me and my business over the years, and it would mean the world to me if you were a part of bringing my little ice cream bakeshop from dream-state to life! I created a goal of $85K here but looking to reach 100K-120K, so please share and reshare this and do a little shimmy when you come visit Noona's on your next date in the East Village!

**Please refer to this link herefor rewards based on your contribution. Thank you!**

Visit Noona's website and instagram to learn more about Noona's and our products if you're still getting to know us.

Also, if you have any questions, email me. You can find my email on Noona's website.

xx,

Hannah noona