Where Dreams Come True: Leslie Mayville, Main Street Creamery

While some people still head out to the big city to chase their dreams, Leslie Mayville and others like her are discovering that they actually stand a better chance of living their dream lives in smaller communities – like the Village of Bath in L&A County.

Leslie hails from nearby Kingston, and like countless others, she made her way to a couple of bigger cities when she began pursuing her dream. That dream, she explains, was to own her own business. “I didn’t know what kind of business I wanted,” she recalls, “I’ve just always known that I wanted something that was my own.”

She began her journey in Ottawa, where she studied business at Carleton Univeristy. In one of her classes, she had an assignment on opening a business. She chose an ice cream shop “for no particular reason”.

After graduation, Leslie headed west to Toronto, where she worked for several years in quality assurance at a computer company. In 2001, Leslie had two conversations that would change her life.

One was with some friends who had opened an ice cream shop in Pakenham, just outside of Ottawa. “I always told them that they only opened their shop to inspire me,” Leslie says. This particular phone call turned out to be truly inspiring. “They told me that they had found some equipment,” she says. “The price was right, and it was mine if I wanted it.”

Leslie’s second life-changing conversation was with her mother, who had moved to Bath a few years earlier. “She said there was a lot of opportunity here, and that it would be a good idea for me to check into it. The two conversations happened at about the same time. I realized that I needed to pay attention to that.”

Leslie and her husband took the plunge and invested in their dream. They left Toronto, bought the ice cream equipment and their business, the Main Street Creamery, was born. They opened in the summer of 2002 on the south side of Main Street in a rented storefront they shared with three other businesses. In 2008, they bought a renovated house on the north side of Main Street and they’ve been there ever since.

The Main Street Creamery sells Nestle ice cream and soft serve, as well as frozen yogurt that they mix with fresh fruit – locally grown, whenever possible. And they serve them up in waffle cones that they make from scratch. “You can smell them being made when you walk in the door,” Leslie says. “They’re incredible.”

This summer, Leslie is turning the Creamery over to her niece and a team of summer students while she takes time off to have a baby. It’s likely that the baby will grow up with a taste for ice cream. “We love the community, and we love the business,” Leslie says. “We see ourselves here for a long time.”

For more information regarding business opportunities and entrepreneurship in Lennox and Addington County contact Stephen Paul at 613-354-4883,ext. 234 or spaul@lennox-addington.on.ca, or visit our site http://www.lennoxandaddington.com/