Emilee Rysticken and Main Street Executive Director Roger Russove
A young entrepreneur is making a sweet impression in downtown Two Rivers. 17-year-old Emilee Rysticken was a January 2019 graduate of Two Rivers High School and has an enterprising attitude. She opened a new ice cream shop, Scream ‘n Conuts, in a cozy building at 1200 Washington Street that began as a gas station in the city back in 1929. She sells Cedar Crest ice cream out of doughnut cones. SeehaferNews.com spoke with Emilee, and she said her idea was born when she made a trip to Prague the summer after her freshman year of high school. “I thought, ‘Why the heck don’t we have that here?’ It’s such an amazing, delicious treat. What better to put ice cream in than a doughnut cone?”
Emilee has been a student member of the Main Street board the past two years, and when she brought the idea up to the group, they all loved it. Being a part of that organization helped Emilee out a lot, as she did a lot of the business stuff on her own but she told us she did get help from other business owners that she knows. Her parents, while initially hesitant of their daughter starting her own business, did help out. “My dad did a lot of the building and remodeling here, but as for the business I’m pretty much on my own.”
Emilee says others, including her Mom, wanted her to go to college, she replied by saying “Well this is just my own kind of debt, rather than going for college debt. Same outcome, just a little different.”
As for the newly painted pink building, Rysticken explained it was the first building a realtor on the board had shown her. “It looked very rough when I bought it, and my dad was very skeptical about it,” she told us. “I saw the vision for it and then I said ‘Let’s go for it!’”
Main Street Executive Director Roger Russove says, “it’s a wonderful feeling to think that the organization could have positively influenced to make a decision to do something like this.” He also praised Emilee’s work ethic and dedication to making this new business venture work.
Rysticken said reaction so far to her new venture has been great. Scream ‘n Conuts had a soft opening on June 12th and formally opened the following day. The shop is open 6-days a week and is closed Mondays.
