You wouldn’t think that a background in construction would lead to running an ice cream empire one day, but for Shane and Raena Mutz it helped lay the blueprint for their success. As the owners of Roxy’s Ice Cream Social, they have grown from a humble food truck they found on Craigslist to operating four brick and mortar locations throughout Oklahoma City.
A Truck of Their Own
Shane and Raena had their first taste of the food truck scene when they were building out trucks and equipping them with kitchens for others. “I started actually building a truck for someone else and had so much fun building the first one that I started to build trucks for other people. She [Raena] was like ‘I’m jealous, I want my own truck’ so that’s how we kind of found the ice cream truck,” Shane said with a laugh.
They started with an old family recipe for vanilla ice cream and began tinkering and trying new things from there. Shane tapped into his construction background for an unlikely source of inspiration when trying to create new flavors, concrete mixing. “With concrete, you mix things into it and it was almost the same thing when we got into ice cream. We were adding things and trying to experiment.”
Armed with a truck of their own and a few new flavors, they set their eyes on the H&8th Night Market in 2012 and were staples at the event each following year. “It got crazy after a while. We’d have lines going down the block and around the corner,” said Raena. The truck holds roughly 1,800 scoops worth of ice cream and they would consistently sell out. “We’d be sore for days,” Raena recalled.
An Offer They Couldn’t Refuse
The Plaza District was one of their favorite places to park the truck. When they were asked to take over an open building in the area, it was an easy decision to make the leap. “Our brick and mortar location there actually fell into our laps. The ownership group had a team meeting and thought we’d be a great fit, how do you say no to that?” Shane said.
They quickly got to work building out and decorating the shop to match the bright colors and branding of the truck. There are even clouds painted on the ceiling to make it feel like you’re outside on a summer day. The new space also meant that they could take their vision one step further with their own line of sugar cane sodas. “We knew that we wanted everything to be Roxy’s brand because we could really put the quality behind it that we wanted our brand to represent,” Shane told us.
That Roxy’s quality is apparent in everything they do from the ice cream flavors to the store counters that Shane built by hand, to the root beer float and the s’mores sundae with homemade marshmallow whipped cream. Along with the four locations, the original Roxy’s truck is still active and running around town, spreading joy one scoop at a time.
And that puts the cherry on top of our Truck to Table series. Thank you so much for following along as we uncovered these success stories!
Truck to Table is a series highlighting the growth and development of Oklahoma City food trucks and how many have opened brick-and-mortar locations. The Tasty Escape is partnering with Visit OKC to showcase the success stories for some of OKC’s most popular “truck to table” restaurants.
Be sure to read the other Truck to Table features about The Hall’s Pizza Kitchen, Off the Hook, The Loaded Bowl, and Holey Rollers Donuts.
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