Helping Turn Roadside Wagon into a Full-Service Restaurant

Before a second-hand Taylor soft serve ice cream machine entered Keith Zimmerman’s life, a wagon alongside the road was all he needed for his Pennsylvania-based Plum Creek Farm Market, selling fruits and veggies his wife grew. 

But Keith soon learned that lean offerings make sustainable business nearly impossible. “I think the food business is one of the most challenging industries that you can be in because you have no way of determining how many people show up on a given day,” he said. 

Searching for a way to drum up more consistent customer demand, Keith thought soft serve ice cream would be the perfect next step for his business. On a shoestring budget and relying on internet research to find equipment for soft serve, Keith bought a secondhand Taylor machine on Facebook Marketplace.

Only two weeks later, Keith had to buy another machine. Plum Creek’s ice cream, made with specialty flavors and farm-fresh ingredients, had captured customer hearts and taste buds immediately. With a second machine, they were ready to double the ice cream output to keep up with new and loyal customers.

Machinery: Leveling Up Where It Matters Most 

One day, Aaron Longenecker of local Taylor distributor Taylor Products, visited Plum Creek to check out the business’ success firsthand. No longer a small roadside wagon operation, Plum Creek had quickly grown into a 400 square foot market offering fresh produce, baked goods, canned goods, novelty snacks, and soft serve ice cream. 

After spending the afternoon chatting with employees, getting a feel for the operations, and tasting the product, Aaron suggested that to stay true to the Plum Creek motto and “cheerfully serve each other,” they needed to take their equipment to the next level. 

Easy-to-Use Products = Consistent Output

Keith agreed, and his business case to purchase more machines was sound. With Plum Creek’s rapid growth and inklings of a new facility on the horizon, delivering a consistently excellent customer experience was more important than ever - especially with new, young staff working at the Creamery during peak summer months. 

“Food is incredibly personal with people. It's something I'm putting into my body, right? So, with customers, you can get it right nine times in a row, and the tenth time you get it wrong. And they're going to remember that,” Keith reflected. 

To ensure consistency and reliability, Plum Creek invested in easy-to-use machinery that produced uniform products regardless of the operator. With Aaron’s guidance, Plum Creek purchased a Taylor shake machine, reducing their serve time for shakes to a third of what it was with the soft serve machine and spinner.

With time, Plum Creek collaborated with Aaron and Taylor to accommodate their growing menu, adding grills and outfitting machines to complement their rising soft pretzel business.

Investing in Engineered Efficiency

Having an easy to use, reliable machine to deliver a consistently great product is not the only thing that makes a big difference in the bottom line; saving time by doing menial things like cleaning, does too. Keith thinks Taylor’s machines excel in that arena. “I am a homegrown engineer myself, so when I look at a piece of machinery, I tend to look not only at what it does but how it was constructed. And you can also often see inside the minds of whoever designed that based on how they put it together,” Keith said. “[Taylor] does a good job with how the machines are designed and how they're set up.” Plum Creek’s then-brand-new machines are still humming as they did over five years ago.

Keith continued, stating he wouldn’t run any other machine because of the money he saves with labor – taking a fraction of the time to tear down the machine, clean it, sanitize it, put it back together, and reload.

Long-lasting, Collaborative Vendor-Distributor Relationships

“In a nutshell, I would say what has worked well for us is Taylor's interest in us as people and interest in our success as a business,” Keith said. 

“So having a relationship with a distributor that not only provides sales support but also service support is key. Because if we have a machine go down on Memorial Day or middle of July, I can't afford to be down long,” he said. 

Superior Service Support 

The service team at Taylor Products, Plum Creek’s local authorized Taylor distributor, provides the operation peace of mind when their equipment needs maintenance in a pinch. Keith has taken advantage of the distributor’s phone support team, who has guided him on operator parts and procedures to solve issues on his own. Their generosity strikes him: “He didn’t make nothing off that service call,” Keith said.  “But what's important to me and why we value it, is that they get our machines going again, and we're not stuck waiting.” For occasions where support is needed beyond the phone, service is available with industry leading turnaround times. 

Keith has worked closely with his distributor to also help  solve capacity issues and product challenges on a personal basis. “So collaboration to me, collaboration means working together. So it's not my idea or your idea. It's our idea, and it's our effort.” The partnership enables Keith to get back to what he calls “chasing squirrels” and come up with new entrepreneurial ideas, entrusting his strong relationship with Taylor to help bring them to fruition.

It’s paying off. Plum Creek now has a large facility with a farm market, a creamery, a full-service restaurant and a pretzel factory. Keith estimates that Plum Creek probably serves 1,500 to 2,000 people on a busy summer Friday. “Our mission is to cheerfully serve each other – our customers and our vendors,” he said. “So the distributor is a vendor for us. We believe those relationships are just as important as the relationships with our customers because, without the vendor, we have no route to serve our customer.”