The buzz is palpable when you enter the Barn. The sound of cows mooing from across the street. The feel of that lukewarm spring air. The fresh scent of fresh waffle cones baking just inches away. It’s an inviting sensory overload when you first arrive at the Ice Cream Barn in Swansea, MA.
Thomas and Jocelyn Seiter had been lugging their “Rhode Ilin Ice Cream” cart to farmer’s markets all over southern New England when they met Kenny Baker, the sixth-generation owner of Baker Farm in the historic Hortonville district of Swansea. After some conversation at the Hope St. Farmer’s Market, a natural partnership was formed. The rest, as they say, is history. The three would go on to open The Ice Cream Barn in 2012.
You would think after over a decade of working together there might be some fatigue, but that’s hardly the case. “I think our love for making ice cream comes from the process,” Tom explained. “We started off with no knowledge and here we are with this thriving business. How could you not fall in love with that process if it’s gone the way it has?”
Beyond ice cream, Jocelyn notes the relationships the two have formed with their young employees and their community. “A lot of kids, it’s their first job. They’ve worked here, gone on to be supervisors, they’ve gone off into the real world and are now successful with ‘big people jobs.’ We’ve known some of our customers for 12 years. They started coming here when they didn’t have kids, and now their child is in 6th grade.” The Barn has become a staple for many folks in Swansea and the surrounding areas. “The connections you make with the people and their families and friends – it’s a special place for so many people, as well as us. We’ve even had a couple get married here because it was their first date here.”
Often times it’s not the flavor of the ice cream, but the texture after mixing the ingredients that can be the most challenging. The Seiters were able to perfect their base vanilla ice cream almost immediately. Other flavors have taken a little more time and research. “Our Pumpkin Patch ice cream probably took us three or four years to perfect,” Tom recalled. “We would make batches of it and we would keep extensive notes and we’d change little parts of the formula every time and we’d write down what would change.”
As much fun as it can be experimenting with different flavors, the Seiters have learned that ice cream making is as much a science as it is an art form. “Ice cream is basically a bunch of little ice crystals,” Jocelyn explains. “They’re naturally drawn to each other and you want them to not be drawn to each other. If you don’t freeze it fast enough, it’ll taste icy on your tongue and we don’t want that.” Tom is also very much enamored with the product and its complexities. “It’s amazing that it exists. There are some ice crystals, there’s a fat matrix with partially coalesced fat molecules in there. And it all needs to work perfectly in order to be lickable ice cream.”
From vanilla and chocolate, all the way to “Cranberry Jubilee” and “Black Raspberry Oreo” – it’s become about more than just ice cream. “It’s a place where people come when they’re having a bad day, or it’s a place they come when they’re having the best day of their lives. The connections with the people…it all started with just a thought of making really good ice cream and it’s become so much more than that. That’s something I think we didn’t expect when we first started.”
