Breaking the ice

The hot September sun is baking the parking lot of the Heidelberg Distributing Co. in Moraine, where the company’s staff appreciation picnic is under way. But things are about to cool off.

Molly Eaton flips a switch and her Tropical Kona Shaved Ice truck — decorated like a tiki hut with painted-on palm trees and tropical fruit — comes to life. Steel-drum music of the islands (“She’s so beautiful they call her Sweet Tea”) and the prospect of icy, fruit-flavored cups of shaved ice have suddenly made it a party.

“I turn the music on and start giving out shaved ice and I feel like it kind of transports people to a happier place — like a vacation state of mind,” said Eaton, who is necklaced with a purple and yellow Hawaiian lei.

Eaton, who graduated from Wright State University in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership, is the proud owner of Kona Ice of Central Dayton. She and her husband, Brad, bought the franchise this summer, and Molly has used social media to get the business off to a flying start.

Molly Eaton, a 2008 Wright State graduate, brings a vacation state of mind wherever she goes in her Tropical Kona Shaved Ice truck. Eaton and her husband, Brad, started operating the food truck this summer. (Photos by Erin Pence)

The Kona shaved-ice experience includes the Flavorwave, a self-serve fountain of syrups such as Lemon-Lime-a-licious, Wild Watermelon, Blue Raspberry, Groovy Grape, Very Cherry and Pina Colada.

“You can mix whatever flavors you want, and I’ve seen it all,” said Eaton. “I have a 4-year-old who loves putting every single flavor in hers. So she gets this brown, soupy mess of shaved ice.”

The most popular flavors are the blues — blue raspberry and Godzilla, which is a blue tropical fruit flavor.

“I don’t know what it is about the color blue, but everyone just wants to pour all that blue concoction onto their shaved ice,” she said.

When Eaton takes the Kona truck to nursing homes, she takes extra pina colada syrup.

“They all love pina colada. Go figure, right?” she said. “They just think the Kona truck is the best thing ever because it’s like a vacation, it’s coming to them, and they don’t get out very often.”

The use of social media is a huge aspect of the business. Eaton started a Kona Facebook page, connecting with her large reservoir of friends and acquaintances.

“It kind of exploded from there,” she said. “I get three to six calls a day requesting us to come out to their event. It can be anything from a church picnic to a 3-year-old’s birthday party to a festival that brings in 100,000 people.”

Eaton grew up in Kettering, the oldest of four children and daughter of a father who works in information technology and mother who is a nurse. As a girl, Eaton was active in softball, volleyball and cheerleading.

“I was always very involved in my community growing up,” she said.

After graduating from Fairmont High School, Eaton enrolled at the University of Cincinnati, but left to return home and take evening classes at Sinclair Community College. Her goal at the time was to get into sports marketing, and in 1999 she got a job in the box office with the Dayton Dragons minor league baseball team.

The Eatons always wanted to be small-business owners and hope to buy more trucks and expand their business.

That led to a marketing job with the Downtown Dayton Partnership, where she helped raise money for the Dayton Holiday Festival and Urban Nights, an event that showcased downtown businesses. In the evenings she took classes at Wright State.

“Wright State will always be a special place for me,” she said. “It took me so long to get my college degree because of the way I went about it, but I feel like all of my professors and counselors were all so encouraging.”

After graduating, Eaton became a stay-at-home mother for several years to raise her two young daughters.

But Eaton wanted to be the owner of a small business that would offer a flexible schedule and be fun. So she and her husband bought a KEV — a Kona Entertainment Vehicle — and the rights to operate a Kona franchise in the Dayton area.

Eaton attended Kona Kollege, a three-day crash course at company headquarters in Florence, Kentucky. The course gave her the tools to market the business, information on where to buy supplies and how the equipment worked. It is nearly the 700th Kona truck operating in the United States.

“The toughest part for me is transitioning from being a full-time stay-at-home mom to a small business owner,” she said. “I feel like my experience at Wright State has really helped me know how to adapt and be more flexible with the scheduling.”

One of the reasons Eaton and her husband were drawn to Kona is because the company’s business model encourages giving back to the community.

One Kona owner near Cincinnati who has been operating for about four years has given $190,000 in proceeds back to the businesses and organizations where he has sold shaved ice. After working at a recent Fairmont football game, Eaton was able to give $400 to the school’s booster club.

“That was something that appealed to us because we want to be involved in the community,” she said.

The goal of Eaton and her husband is to buy more trucks and expand the business.

“We have always wanted to be small-business owners,” she said. “My experience at Wright State definitely encouraged me to see it as a possibility, something I could make happen. And here I am today.”