And now …

Brian Langbehn: The third shop in Old Town Elkhorn …  is projected for mid to end of April, 2025.

Please make sure to invite me. I’d love to come.

Brian Langbehn: Oh, yeah, for sure.

This [Millwork] area has been really exciting to watch the development over time.

Brian Langbehn: Yeah.

Then there’s kind of a debate onto what this area is called.

Brian Langbehn: There is a little bit, definitely.

I mean, and when we came here, I think the original, the ultimate goal was to have a big enough kitchen space so that we could produce everything for all the shops.

What we really wanted to do was have kind of the central production facility that could supply up to three shops.

Now with that control of the quality and that consistency and efficiency that we get out of one kitchen.

So that was the main focus. But we’ve been really pleasantly surprised as to the foot traffic we’re getting at this Millwork location, as well.

As things develop around here, it’s becoming really, really busy.

How did you find out about Millwork? How long did it take to build out?

Brian Langbehn: We had looked a long time ago.

Katie Arant Chapman: We looked six years ago. We looked way pre-COVID at Millwork. It was totally gutted. I mean, the dock looked nothing like it looks now.

…

Brian Langbehn: And then all the work they have to do, and there really wasn’t the momentum happening down here. It was just like, okay, I could kind of see it, but we thought it was too …

Katie Arant Chapman: … A little too far off the beaten path. Yeah, found a good space that was right for whatever you wanted to do.

Brian Langbehn: We did like being next to the baseball stadium.

We could feel that there was opportunity in this area, but we were just a little early.

Katie Arant Chapman: We reopened Millwork as an option. We said, okay, well, let’s go look at it again. That was probably a tour three years later after seeing it for the first time.

But we still hadn’t found the spot that we wanted to go into, so we said, we’ll look at Millwork again.

We built it out at the tail end of COVID. What I found, I don’t know how you feel about it, Brian, but I have found that I feel like Elkhorn is moving so quickly, and they’re built out because this was a really big space.

There were historical issues to deal with, given that it’s a historic building.

And then just with all the COVID delays, I mean, it was over a year of build out, I’m sure.

Brian Langbehn:  Yeah. Millwork took a long time because of the supply chain issues, just the availability of the regular construction products.

So, this Elkhorn is going much faster now. Now that things are kind of opened up a little bit.

This one definitely took a long time. We love being down here. We’re so glad. We kind of like, you know, Dolomiti – Best pizza, Archetype. -Best coffee, Kros Strain – best beer. We Just feel like it’s a great little.

It’s amazing. The little treasures.

Katie Arant Chapman: Yeah.

Of things right here.

Brian Langbehn:  Right, right. Now, there is a lot of momentum. There’s stuff happening here, and that the whole block.

The Dizzy Mule project, is like that whole block to the south of us here that’s taking off.

And as the Riverfront develops with the park and the Luminarium, the museum, there’s a lot of really exciting things happening down by us here.

Not to mention the baseball stadium and summer College World Series.

Brian Langbehn: There’s a lot happening.

And it’s neat to see, like, an ecosystem kind of develop right in this area.

Katie Arant Chapman: Yeah.

Which a lot of other build outs I’ve seen in other places don’t seem to be that interested in the ecosystem of business and residential.

Brian Langbehn:  Right. It’s much more cohesive down here where there’s a vision of what they want this area to be. I think we’re here early to that vision.

But it’s exciting because now it’s starting to fill in around us, and to get established before is really important because they’ll be like, oh, we can go to Coneflower.

It’s kind of nice to get that first. No, we weren’t first, but one of the first ones down here.

I think we were talking earlier about how special ice cream itself is.

So tell me a little bit more about that and your favorite flavors and maybe some of your more unusual flavors.

And then, of course, nothing wrong with old favorites at the end, so people can have a list of things to wonder about when they do this and want to go try.

Brian Langbehn: Yeah. Do you want to go first, Katie?

Katie Arant Chapman: Yeah. I mean, for me, I am just in general, I’m an incredibly nostalgic person and nostalgic eater specifically.

If I’m taking a pint home, it probably will be the cookies and cream, but the flavors that I’m really proud of here that are a little bit different, probably the brown butter almond brittle is a really comforting … It’s not a classic, but it has like some classic elements to it. The warmth, the brown butter and the nuttiness of the almond toffee I really love.

We do a … I mentioned the saffron and roasted white chocolate has been a really fun one to do that resonates with a lot of people.

Trying to think of one else that I just can’t get enough of.

Brian Langbehn: There’s so many.

Katie Arant Chapman: Honeycomb is one of my all-time favorites too, that we actually just started doing in the last two years.

But we make a honeycomb candy with local honeycomb and swirl that through a vanilla base.

It’s called Hokey Pokey in other parts of the world.

But that’s a really fun kind of like classic to other.

It’s very classic in Canada. Classic to other parts of the world. It’s really delicious. And then the thing that gets me, gives me a little pep in my step all the time is the seasonal stuff.

Christmas, we have an amazing Christmas list of flavors and then we get to move right into Valentine’s Day and do all the really fudgy, rich, decadent flavors.

Now we’re just past that, so we’re doing some Mardi Gras stuff.

We have a Bananas Foster and King cake ice cream. And then we get to roll right into St. Patty’s Day and do chocolate mint and Irish coffee and things like that.

And then after that, it’ll be the first little bits of little hints of spring and then College World Series flavors.

There’s just always something new going on. It’s just fun.

What are you thinking of for College World Series flavors?

Katie Arant Chapman: So for College World Series, traditionally we have three flavors.

We have a Big League Chew, which is bubblegum. And we actually make that naturally by combining vanilla, lemon, orange and banana.

If you combine those in a certain combination, you without a doubt hit bubble gum.

Brian Langbehn: It’s incredible.

Katie Arant Chapman: So we do Big League Chew. We do a spicy Cracker Jack, which is a buttered popcorn base with a sriracha caramel and cayenne peanuts.

It’s really fun.

And then we also do a malted milk chocolate, which is kind of an homage to those little malted milk Goodrich cups that you get at the stadium with the wooden spoon.

The tough thing is, we have so many classics that people look forward to every year.

We look forward to making them, balancing that with being innovative.

And we only have so many slots in the freezer up here when we’re keeping ice cream.

Brian Langbehn: So, yeah, if you don’t make the favorites, you would definitely hear about it.

But we always like to try to, you know, innovate and create as well.

So, yeah, that’s a balance.

Katie Arant Chapman: I think we’ll want to get together this year and, like, figure out something new to add to the CWS roster. But it is always a challenge to fit everything into the ice cream case.

Your turn.

Brian Langbehn: I guess for nostalgia one of the things, some earlier memories for me, if we would make ice cream at home that was, like, a really special occasion usually, or it was just something that was not regularly done, but it would be really special, and it would be the little canister that we throw in the freezer. We usually would just make vanilla, but it would be gone within two days, and it was just unlike anything you could get at the store. And it always blew my mind. And so those are some of my, earliest memories of ice cream.

I think trying to tap into that feeling of ice cream is special when you make it, and when we can make our own flavors, try to get that feel of it’s not just from the store. It’s like, there’s a lot going into it and using those good ingredients

For flavors. I’ve got a lot of. Some of the seasonal ones are really. When we work with local farmers, we’ll get some.

But, yeah, some of our seasonal flavors, in the summer we’ve got an abundance of fresh, local ingredients that we have access to, and our farmers are growing for us.

Some of the ones, like black raspberries, if we can find them, you know, we do a black raspberry crisp.

There’s a black walnut ice cream is one of my personal favorites.

It’s just very unique, but very Midwest, very flavorful.

But at the end of the day, I’m always like Katie. There’s that nostalgia. I’ll get the vanilla with some of our homemade hot fudge with some nuts, and it’s the best thing ever.

I just love it so much. So that’s usually one of my goto’s. But yeah, we have a lot of really fun flavors. We do a strawberry ice cream where we actually take our whole staff and we hand pick the strawberries that go into that ice cream.

It’s just kind of a fun thing that we do every year, a tradition.

We only make that strawberry ice cream when the strawberries are in season.

And it’s kind of a fun. There’s nothing more fresh, nothing more, you know, nothing better than that at that time.

And when it’s gone, it’s gone. And so, yeah, it’s about second, second or third week in June.

Usually, we can start picking that first week if the weather is okay, and then by the second or third week, we’ll have the ice cream.

It’s a tradition and we kind of get a team together, we go eat breakfast together, and then we go hit the fields early enough, hopefully before it gets too hot in the day.

And we pick as much as we can, and then that’s what we use to make that year’s batch of strawberry ice cream.

So really special, fun,

Wonderful things you’re doing to what everyone has as an old favorite.

You told me a little bit about your classic flavors that you always keep… Any more you want to add in terms of classics?

Brian Langbehn: What’s normally or we try to have available every day would be our Vanilla Bean.

Not necessarily. They can sell out from time to time, but we try to make them all the time.

There are exceptions, but the Vanilla Bean, our dark chocolate, the archetype coffee.

I haven’t tried that one.

Katie Arant Chapman: Oh, it’s good.

Brian Langbehn: Cookies and cream. When we have them again, this is not like set in stone, but we do make that quite often.

The Blackstone Butter Brickle. That’s our tart cherry crumble and grandma mini lemon bar.

Brian Langbehn: Yes…

Katie Arant Chapman: Those are kind of our core flavor s…

Brian Langbehn: …  so lots of different choices, but yeah.

What are you planning in the Elkhorn location?

Katie Arant Chapman: So Elkhorn will be slightly less seating than Millwork.

More seating than Blackstone. It’s kind of in between those two in terms of square footage on the customer’s side.

The ice creams, we’ll try to keep. I mean, even between Blackstone and Millwork right now, we try to keep them as similar as possible.

Whatever we’re scooping in Millwork, we also like to be scooping in Blackstone as well.

So that will hold true for Elkhorn as well as best we can.

It’s always gonna feel a little different, but yeah, I mean, we’re really hoping to kind of recreate some of that … the organic elements that you see in our Blackstone or Millwork shop, like the brick and the cool tile and things like that, we’re trying to infuse into the space out in Elkhorn, too.

So we’re really excited about it. It’s gonna be cute.

I am, too. Three locations. It’s fantastic. And so similar ideas between each of the locations where you’re there at a really cool time for growth and excitement in the neighborhood.

It’s amazing timing.

Brian Langbehn: Yeah. I think we’ve been really fortunate to get in where we have and when we have.

Katie Arant Chapman: And we didn’t try to jump into anything too soon, you know, after Blackstone.

We looked at a lot of spaces all over town, and it took a long time to kind of land on this.

And, you know, Elkhorn has kind of come sooner, but.

Well, and we’ve kind of looked. We always kind of had our eye on west, but it took a long time to kind of really see where we would fit in.

Well, the best. And we found the one in Elkhorn. It was like, oh, yeah, this feels like a Coneflower.

Like, should be here. It has the same kind of, like, a nice community of local businesses.

Thank you.

Omaha Interview: Brian Langbehn and Katie Arant Chapman of Coneflower Creamery, Part One
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-interview-brian-langbehn-and-katie-arant-chapman-of-coneflower-creamery-part-one/

Coneflower Creamery Locations:

Coneflower Creamery – Blackstone
3921 Farnam Street
Blackstone District
Omaha, NE 68131
402.913.2399

Coneflower Creamery – Millwork
1241 Millwork Ave
Millwork Commons
Omaha NE 68102
402.913.2399

https://coneflowercreamery.com