Sandwich Creamery enters new era as next generation takes over

SANDWICH — There’s a sound Jake Merriman associates with ice cream. Actually, it’s the lack of sound, to be specific: a boisterous group of people suddenly fall silent when they take their first bites of the timeless summer treat. Time seems to pause, and the ice cream eaters focus all of their attention on the cool, the creamy and the sweet.

Merriman is one of the children of Tom and Lisa Merriman, who founded and ran the Sandwich Creamery from 1995 until earlier this year. In April, the Merrimans announced they were closing down the beloved boutique creamery so they could retire.

Jake wasn’t just the child of the creamery’s founders; the family operation was a central part of his formative years. He grew up helping to make ice cream, and doing all manner of “odd jobs” around the property, from being a part of the creamery’s construction to “picking rocks” out of the field that became a lawn for creamery patrons to sit in while enjoying one of life’s finest indulgences.

Later, as a teenager, the creamery offered Jake an avenue into entrepreneurship. He and some high school friends started an ice cream boat business on Lake Winnipesaukee, selling the family’s wares to people boating on the state’s biggest lake.

But life took Jake away from the creamery — and from New Hampshire — in recent years. As an adult, he carved out a spot for himself in California, where he founded and grew a business. It was from the West Coast that he watched his parents struggle with a particularly acrimonious period. In 2021, some of the creamery’s neighbors on Hannah Road filed suit to stop the traffic, accelerated by the pandemic, heading down the dirt road in search of the rustic creamery. The creamery no longer offers retail sales at the Hannah Road location; hungry customers should instead head to the North Sandwich Store, or the handful of other local retailers carrying their products.

Jake was also in California when his parents were preparing to wind down the business so they could enjoy their golden years. He said that from one angle, it made no sense for him to take over the business. He had sold his business, and was already deep into development on his next big idea. Yet, considering the situation from another perspective, he saw that it also didn’t make sense to let the creamery close.

That’s why Jake is back in Sandwich this summer, and why the creamery, which had publicized its closing as recently as April, is still very much alive and well, and making plans to continue making ice cream into the foreseeable future.

“I was pretty full-on, pretty busy, but it came to me that it wouldn’t be in our best interest to sell everything,” Jake said, noting that no one outside of the family would be able to run the creamery as well as a Merriman could, considering his institutional knowledge of the brand and customer base. He concluded, “If we can keep it in the family, that would be best for everybody.”

Conversations with his parents began in mid-April, he said, and by mid-May, he was driving east, using the road trip as a chance to develop a plan that would protect the value Tom and Lisa had built over 28 years in business, and would also allow them to successfully retire.

By the time he arrived in New Hampshire, he had completed a multi-point plan for this summer. Elements of the plan included: help Tom and Lisa get the retirement they deserve, maintain the Sandwich Creamery as a family-owned business, develop a team that could carry on the business operations, and bring joy back to the Sandwich Creamery community. That last point is accomplished, in part, by coming up with a “joyful adventure,” Jake said, which would evoke the same feelings of discovery and delight that used to inspire ice cream seekers down some of Sandwich’s quiet, dirt roads. If they headed down the right one, they’d come to a building, something between a shed and a barn in size and design, and inside there would be freezers full of ice cream, a slot for cash and checks, and a make-your-own-change bucket of coins. Ice cream and honesty.

A new chapter

Jake was on the other side of the continent when, a couple of years ago, Tom and Lisa were engaged in the ugliest episode of the business’ history. He doesn’t even know all of the details today. A couple of neighbors filed a lawsuit, irritated by what they felt was an infringement on their quality of life by traffic coming down their dead-end road. Jake knows there was an agreement made to resolve the conflict, and they no longer sell ice cream from their small, rustic manufacturing facility at the end of that road.

Jake’s happy to allow disagreements of the past to stay in the past, and he would like to welcome his neighbors to be part of the creamery’s present, and its future.

“When there’s parties that have a difference of agreement, there’s often unkind things that are spoken, unkind actions, malicious conduct. My stance on that is that the higher ground is forgiveness,” Jake said. “Just about any conflict has a resolution when you’re in your heart, you’re poised, you’re clear and you’re curious, 'What would be a win for the other party?' I’m always willing to find the win-win ... sometimes it takes a minute to find that.”

When Jake talks about the business, he doesn’t use words like “customers” and “market.” Instead, he talks about “community.” It’s not hard to understand why. He met one woman, at a store in West Ossipee, who said she had sworn off ice cream when she thought, erroneously, the Sandwich Creamery was closed. She actually chased him down in the parking lot when she realized who he was, and what he was up to.

Then there’s the story about the Squam Lake Marketplace in Holderness, which was instructing its employees to meet the delivery van in the parking lot, because someone noticed Tom was having a hard time unloading the ice cream. Tom would never ask for help, Jake said, even though he needed it.

For Jake, the story of the Sandwich Creamery goes back to his boyhood, when he was living in Germany, and his father took him along for a two-month sabbatical of sorts to Scotland. Tom learned to make cheese and ice cream, and Jake busied himself by tagging along with the sheep and learning how to deliver lambs.

“We come back from Europe, my dad buys Jerseys [cows], starts milking them, finishes the building. One day, he’s got the cheesemaking room all built up, and he brings in the ice cream machine,” Jake recalled. “It brought the whole journey from Scotland full circle.”

“What matters to me long-term with the creamery, my intention is to steward the creamery with the intention of restoring a healthy sense of community,” Jake said. “Community really matters to me. There is a community of amazing customers we have, friends and neighbors, my intention is to heal the community. I think that just takes time.”

In addition to the North Sandwich Store and the Squam Lake Marketplace, Sandwich Creamery ice cream can be found at Momma Bear’s Country Store in Tamworth, Farm to Table in Ossipee, and E.M. Heath’s in Center Harbor.