WTF? Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream in Florence

There are McDonald's in Florence, and that is about it. No Starbucks, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, etc. - no American/International franchises (for food). That changed today. As I walked around the Duomo I came upon the below:

That is a brand new Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream shop. Seems a little strange in the land of gelato. I could understand it in a bigger city, but Florence is really a small town, and Winter is less than a month away. We just heard of a newer gelato place that is closing down already. I don't know - I wish them luck, but the timing could have been better.

Comments

[Anna Pelagotti]

do you know why no starbucks?

[Anthony]

I know there is some reason - not sure what though - if it is the Italians that don't want them, or if they think it wouldn't work. Starbucks stores are corporate owned - not franchised. I also thought for a time that Starbucks actually bought or owned La Marzocco - but I am having a hard time finding that info on the web...

Aha:

"RC: What happened was that in the early to mid 90s, Starbucks started buying a substantial number of our machines and started expanding. We were the only, and still are the only, traditional espresso machines that they use in their stores. And about 1993, Kent Bakke (who is an American and was already the importer for Marzocco in the U.S. for about 10 to 15 years before) came to Piero and said, “Look, this company Starbucks is growing and they really like our machines and we’re going to need a lot more machines than you’re giving us.” And Piero said, “I can’t make them here, you’re going to have to set up an assembly plant in Seattle, and, by the way, you have to buy the company.” That’s sort of paraphrased I’m sure, but basically he is the last member of the family. He doesn’t have any children. And he wanted to see the company continue as a company here in Tuscany, and he wanted the name Marzocco continued. So Kent put together a group of investors, most of them from the U.S., and bought the vast majority of the company in 1994. There was a written agreement, and there was also a handshake agreement that we would keep a factory in Tuscany and it would have precedence over any other assembly point that we would build, that the name would remain Marzocco, and that we would provide for everybody who was here as long as we could. In other words, not to buy it, take the name, get the technologyand go to the States. And we absolutely respected that. You know, at first there was a huge sale of machines to Starbucks. Then they started going to fully automatic machines just because they can’t train enough baristas to make a good coffee. When the demand started to decrease, we had to do something, so we closed the factory in Seattle. Basically we kept this one."

http://www.theflorentine.net/articles/article-view.asp?issuetocId=991

I really don't know how accurate that is though!

[TuscanyArt]

I thought pretty much the same thing when I passed by there and saw this last week! This is the land of gelato (see our article from this summer: http://ow.ly/HrMQ). Who would want to come here and eat American ice cream?

[Anthony]

Have to admit that I took the kids yesterday... :(

(I did not have any!)

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1424706162]

Menomale non c'e' Starbucks. Meglio il caffe' italiano che le bibite che ti sciacquano di grasso che ho bevuto in USA. L'ICE CREAM a Jamaica Plain vicino Boston era invece sensazionale ma non avete messo l'indirizzo di quello di Firenze. Siete troppo emozionati dal non credere sia vero? http://www.spremiacume.wordpress.com

[Anthony]

Le mie gelaterie prefferite in Firenze:

Gelateria dei Neri (website?)

Perchè No http://www.percheno.firenze.it/

Grom http://www.grom.it/ita/

Vestri http://www.vestri.it/

[Lovermont]

VERMONT in the house... represent...
Well, not exactly. Ben & Jerry's is owned by Unilever, which is an Anglo-Dutch company.
I'd rather eat the Gelato though. While in Florence, do as the Florentines.

[Anthony]

Speaking of gelaterias - there is a new epidemic of them now in Florence. There are now at least 4 within several hundred meters of each other spanning borgo Albizi to via Pietrapana - 2 are newer (year or two) and 2 are brand new (weeks and days old). They are popping up all over the place... not to mention one that opened and closed in a matter of months that was on borgo Albizi near the Proconsolo end...