mmmmm...Ice cream
Michal Elseth
Issue date: 11/12/09 Section: News
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Trippett runs Marcella's in downtown Jonesville and the ice cream parlor alongside. He even plans to make the second floor of the building into a hotel as soon as he has he funds.
"I have visions for this town that would in turn help the county," Trippett said.
Trippett has never been to business school. In fact, he never even took more than a semester of college. But he has a knack for business all the same.
Jonesville, he said, has become the place to go, or at least to eat. With almost a dozen restaurants right downtown, one would think business would get competitive. But it's remained relatively constant. People want to eat, and they want to be entertained.
That is all part of Trippett's plan. He brings live entertainment to Marcella's as often as he can, including short Broadway shows and singer Matt Walch, who does crooner songs. He said he only allows semi-professional or professional performers on stage so he can monitor the quality of entertainment and further his plan of drawing customers for the shows as well as the food. All this, and he never finished college.
"I have been trained in the school of life," he said.
A lot of what he has learned in one area of life or work apply in others, he explained. He worked in the auto industry for 17 years and was trained for statistical analysis. That expertise has helped him with the math and money side of running Marcella's.
"If you work hard and treat people with dignity and respect, that's really all you need," he said.
He worked at Mackinac Island Creamery for two years in quality assurance. While there, he took an Ice Cream Short Course at Pennsylvania State University, a six-day class teaching the basics of ice-cream making. Both experiences have been a great help to selling the best possible ice cream at Marcella's, he said.
For Trippett, though, the ice cream and entertainment are really only second to the greatest reward of running Marcella's: the people he meets and serves through his business.
Trippett said he and his employees love meeting new people and forming friendships with regular customers, and he values his conversations with all the people who walk through his doors.
This love of people is a family trait. Trippett's 20-year-old son, also David, works at the restaurant. He said his favorite part (besides the pumpkin ice cream, naturally) is also the people, both the people he works with and the people that come in.
And, like his father, David Trippett Jr. does more than one job around the place.
"We all do everything," he said.
Marcella's used to be a coffee shop called The Gathering. The biggest challenge Trippett said he and his wife Marcella have faced in turning the old The Gathering into Marcella's is getting rid of the idea that Marcella's is a coffee shop.
The stereotype has damaged Marcella's business as a restaurant, Trippett said, but he said has done all he can to draw customers for meals. He has added substantially to the menu, hoping to see people choose Marcella's for dinner sometimes instead of other Jonesville restaurants.
No matter how long it takes, the Trippetts are in it for the long haul.
"We didn't get in this to try it and quit," he said.
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