Sam Sklar
Park Lake Creamery has been limited to online orders due to short staffing, but planned to reopen Oct. 30.Tucked away on the side of a winding road on the shores of Park Lake in Bath lies a local sweet shop known as the Park Lake Creamery.
On a sunny 70º October afternoon, the store is typically busy with people from all around the greater Lansing area picking up chocolates for loved ones or enjoying a refreshing ice cream cone after a long day. But the Park Lake Creamery, like many other small businesses, is not immune to the economic repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The store has been forced to offer online orders exclusively due to staffing shortages, but plans to reopen soon with help on the way.
“We are embarrassed that we are closed,” Park Lake Creamery Co-Owner Konny Zsigo said. “We’ve got people calling, coming, texting. If you think about how hard a company works and a business works to get to the point where anyone even cares that they exist I mean, wow. Finally you get to a point where your people appreciate your products enough to where they want to come, and then they can’t. It’s like fumbling the football on the two yard line.
Zsigo established the Park Lake Creamery five years ago with his wife, Nikki. Both were out of the workforce at the time and in completely different industries.
After many years being a CEO of multiple high-tech companies, Konny Zsigo sold his company and decided to completely switch gears. He went and studied in Belgium and Canada and became a professional chocolatier. Konny and Nikki then found an available building located on Park Lake and their chocolate business began.
“I didn’t necessarily want to start another high-tech company,” Konny Zsigo said. “… I’ve kind of thought this would be fun to start a chocolate business.”
So, in 2016 the doors to Park Lake Creamery opened. The initial plan was for the shop to solely sell chocolate, but the previous building owners sold ice cream, making it easy for the Zsigos to add it, along with coffee, to the menu. Its location and outdoor seating makes for a perfect summertime activity, while providing chocolates for winter holidays.
Fast forward to 2020 when the pandemic hit the United States in March and businesses were forced to shut down. Konny Zsigo immediately leaned on his entrepreneurial skills and came up with a quick solution for his business. He contacted some of his former colleagues and got Park Lake Creamery enrolled in a beta program for Zipwhip, a business text messaging software.
Instead of downloading an app, customers could now order goods simply via text messaging. The whole process from initial inquiry to payment is all done from text messages. Even simple questions such as store hours could be answered from a quick text.
However, the Zsigos decided to play safely by not reopening until August of 2020. Upon reopening, the Zipwhip was implemented and there was immediate but not so much long-term success.
“It was a great solution to an intense problem, but I can’t tell you that people are texting anymore,” Konny Zsigo said. “That just doesn’t happen here anymore. We have the system, and people still text and they do for other things. They text to find out when we’re open, and what our menu items are, but they generally don’t order anymore.”
While that addressed a short-term issue, some of the other consequences such as labor and supply shortages from the pandemic are starting to affect businesses everywhere. The Park Lake Creamery has been hit hard from the labor crisis. A few weeks ago the business was forced to close because it did not have enough workers.
“It’s been painful to watch our customers just kind of be disappointed because they got to roll in here and look at the beautiful fall we are having,” Konnny Zsigo said. “It would obviously be great weekends for ice cream and stuff …This is a nice chill from an otherwise stressful week.”
The question of where workers have gone is one business owners are wondering all across the nation. Park Lake Creamery scheduled a Oct. 30 reopening for in-person business, as new employees would be joining the Zsigos and the few other employees who have stuck around.
“I like it when this place is buzzing with people,” Zsigo said. “It’s fun when you see families come and people coming out on a date … It’s fun to see that you were able to make this space for them and that they enjoyed it.”