Sunday, April 27, 2008

Carvel stores, including Keller Town Center, offering free samples of new frozen blended coffee drink on May 1

By Pegasus News wire

KELLER — The Carvel® Ice Cream store at Keller Town Center is offering three new frozen blended coffee drinks that bring to mind a frozen coffee drink made by a certain large coffee chain.

Coffee Freeze, Mocha Freeze, and Caramel Macchiato blend coffee with Carvel vanilla flavoring and ice, topped with whipped cream and drizzled with caramel or chocolate.

If you are curious about the flavor of these new drink concepts but feel reluctant to invest in a full drink without knowing first how they taste, go to the Carvel at Keller Town Center on May 1 between 4 and 6 p.m. when the store will be giving away eight-ounce servings.

"We hope our regulars will try something new, and we anticipate our new guests becoming regulars once they try our delicious new frozen drinks," says Elaine Barone, owner of the Keller store.

In addition to the coffee drinks, the Carvel at Keller Town Center will offer free samples of the newest flavors of their Arctic Blenders™, another icy blended concoction combining Carvel vanilla flavoring with an array of toppings. New flavors include Cookie Dough, Peanut Butter, and Fried Ice Cream.

Stop for a moment to consider how many layers of labor are involved in a Fried Ice Cream flavor Frozen Blended Drink: First comes the construction of the ice cream. Next, you must make a batter, wrap it around the ice cream, and deep-fry it. After it's fried, it's frozen again. To go an extra step and blend that with ice and the previously-cited Carvel vanilla flavoring is almost inconceivable.

"Carvel already offers shakes, smoothies, 'Carvelanches' and floats, but I believe our new blended beverages will catapult us into a position where we can be leaders in the beverage category," explains Gary Bales, president of Carvel Ice Cream. "Continued innovation coupled with our current menu variety enables us to offer something for everyone and our exemplary customer service is icing on the cake."

Carvel anticipates giving away over 20,000 free beverages during happy hour at participating locations nationwide, including the Carvel at Keller Town Center. The only other stand-alone Carvel store in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is in Carrollton; it does not open on Mondays. Known mostly for soft-serve but also hand-dipped ice cream, Carvel opened a number of stores locally with a big flourish in 2004, all to franchisees; most have since closed, plagued by mismanagement, with some going into bankruptcy. Luckily, the branch in Keller has watchful owner Elaine Barone. There's also "express" outlet inside a Schlotzky's in Fort Worth.

Source: Carvel; posted by T.G.

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