Jordan and Maddison Burge plan to maintain what made ice-cream shop great, but make changes, such as drive-through coffee

Tim Harty, The Business Times

Jordan Burge said he was joking when he asked the question: “What if we buy Graff Dairy?”

Maddison Burge was serious when she answered: “Show me the numbers, then we’ll talk.”

Those numbers added up to the husband-and-wife duo becoming the new owners of Graff Dairy, an iconic Grand Valley ice-cream shop at 581 29 Road. They closed on the sale Sept. 1, buying only the business, not the building and land that were available if a buyer wanted to package all three.

Jordan Burge said he has a background in business consulting, helping businesses determine the problems causing them to struggle, then helping them address the problems.

One of the things he did to identify possible clients was look at the listings of local businesses for sale, and earlier this year he saw Graff Dairy listed. But Graff Dairy wasn’t looking to sell because it was struggling. Rather, its owners, Ed and Lloy Beauchamp, were looking to retire.

When Jordan took a closer look at the business, he determined, “There’s a lot of opportunity in Graff Dairy.”

So, when Maddison told him to show her the numbers, Jordan said he was shocked, because he acknowledges, “I’m the optimistic person.” Or, as Maddison put it, “He’s got stars in his eyes.”

And Maddison is the realist, or as Jordan put it, “She’s the person that brings me back down to earth.”

So, when Jordan asked her, “What if we buy Graff Dairy?” he was sure he knew the answer. The only question was how emphatically Madison would say, “No!”

When he got the equivalent of a “maybe,” Jordan said, “I was like, ‘It’s go time!’”

Jordan and Maddison are from the Grand Valley and were familiar with Graff Dairy and its solid reputation in the community as an ice-cream maker. They want to maintain that.

But they also want to make some sensible changes to grow the business, and Jordan thinks he’s the go-getter Graff Dairy needs “to be able to take this business to the next step.”

Sitting in Graff Dairy’s second-floor conference room with Maddison on Sept. 2, their second day as owners, Jordan said that next step starts with “implementing things that make it easier for Graff Dairy on the operational side, some things that are gonna keep it affordable, cheap. I’m renegotiating all the goods that we buy, so that we don’t have to raise prices. And as long as that happens, I think the community will be happy.”

And the Burges are wasting no time in adding an important new item to the menu: coffee.

They anticipated Aug. 4 being the first day serving coffee drinks, and that means opening at 7 a.m. every day.

“Graff Dairy has about an entire one-mile radius of a monopoly for a drive-through coffee shop,” Jordan said. “You know, the closest one is Dutch Bros (Coffee), and just looking at that line, driving through in the morning, if you want a quick cup of coffee, you’re probably not going to go there, because it’ll take 15 minutes. So, that’s the very next step is kind of going full blast with the coffee.”

For other changes, the Burges are going to ask customers for their thoughts by “doing a community-wide survey for anybody who wants input” about what Graff Dairy offers for food and ice cream and drinks.

“A lot of people don’t like change unless they feel like they have a hand in it,” Jordan said. “So, I want to make sure that this community feels like they have a hand in the next step of what we’re going to do.”

In addition to coffee, the drinks menu will add refreshers (cold, fruit-flavored beverages). And because coffee’s caffeine isn’t enough for some people, there will be some Red Bull-infused drinks, as Maddison acknowledged she wants them on the menu.

“Red Bull and Italian cream soda, unfortunately, is my vice,” she said and added with a laugh, “so we’re excited to add it to the menu.”

While there will be changes to the menu, the Burges will limit them.

“I don’t want to go crazy with the menu,” Jordan said. “I like to watch ‘Kitchen Nightmares,’ so I always like to reference Gordon Ramsay. When you have a very complicated menu, it makes it hard on your inventory, it makes it confusing for customers, and it makes it harder on your employees.

“And when you simplify things, when you make things easier for customers, employees, it also makes things easier for business. And so whatever we do, whatever input that we get from the community, it’ll just become our menu in a simple way.”

Emphasizing several things

What can customers expect with Jordan and Maddison Burge as the new owners of Graff Dairy, 581 29 Road?

Jordan Burge was more than ready for that question, listing consistently high-quality food and drinks, customer service and cleanliness.

When it comes to cleanliness, he said, “I’m an extreme stickler on that,” and on Sept. 2, the day after he and Maddison closed on the sale of the business, he said a crew had already gone through and “deep cleaned every nook, cranny and crevice in this building.”

When it comes to quality and consistency, he said his standards are extremely high.

“The quality that we’re putting out, we’re gonna ensure that it’s consistent every single time,” he said.

And for customer service, he said, “We are focusing heavily on customer-service training and how we talk to people when you come into our lobby.”

For example, Jordan said Graff Dairy is installing self-ordering kiosks for those customers who want the convenience of technology. But anyone who wants to do things the old-fashioned way, stepping up to a counter and talking to a person who takes their order, they’ll get that.

Burge said a Graff Dairy employee is “going to come out to you. They’re going to have a conversation with you. They’re gonna take your order that way.”

Everyone walked away a winner

Kyle Serrano of Venture Group was the broker for the sellers, Ed and Lloy Beauchamp, in the Graff Dairy sale. Meanwhile, Katie Davis, who recently bought S.U.R.E. (Straight Up Real Estate) from Dale Beede, was the agent for buyers Jordan and Maddison Burge.

The Burges bought the business only, not the building and land at 581 29 Road, which are owned by Darin Carei, who offered both as part of a package if the buyer required the property to be part of the sale.

Serrano said the Beauchamps are “very happy with how everything unfolded. They were ready to turn the chapter over to somebody else. … It was important to them who takes over the reins and that they kind of continue on with what Graff is, but improve upon it. And it seems like (Jordan Burge is) going to be doing all those things, and we anticipate he’s going to do a good job. So they were happy with all that, how the transaction went.”

Serrano added Carei is fine with keeping the property and being Graff Dairy’s landlord.

“He would have loved to sell it, but he’s also fine holding on to it and just renting it out and revisiting that down the road when it makes a little bit more sense for him,” Serrano said. “It was a good win-win-win deal at the end of it.”

Looking for more early risers

Adding coffee to the menu requires Graff Dairy to open much earlier than it has in recent years, and the 7 a.m. openings will require additional staff. The Burges said they’ve already hired some additional employees, but they still need more, so they are accepting applications.