KANSAS CITY, Mo. — April Redic opened the Kaleidoscoops ice cream shop because she wanted to provide a nostalgic ice cream shop experience in Kansas City, Kansas.
“I wanted to bring back that feeling of the old school, mom-and-pop ice cream shop,” Redic said, "where its just geared towards your old-fashioned banana splits, malts, floats — just scooped ice cream, where your ingredients are already in the ice cream.”
Redic worked in the ice cream industry for 20 years. When she saw a big-name ice cream store close in the neighborhood where she eventually opened Kaleidoscoops at 6609 Parallel Parkway, she felt it was her calling to keep an ice cream shop in the community.
“Even though I was in the industry for 20 years, I did go back to school to learn the ownership part of it, learning accounting and learning business laws.," Redic said. "Then, starting to work with different agencies and coaches and life coaches, that helped inspire us move along."
She's providing a local business for her community, but she's also inspiring others to achieve their dreams, too.
"I want to be a representation of what looks like my community," Redic said. "I want to be able to have little boys and little girls come in and say, 'Hey, she looks like me and she’s doing something great.'"
Redic opened her store in November 2019, just before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and is still thriving.
“Don’t let hardships stop you or deter you," she said. "Just find a new way to go around it, find a new way to problem solve it.”
Her biggest advice to others that are trying to achieve their dreams is simple.
“Just do something everyday that pushes you towards your goal,” Redic said.
That advice stems from wisdom she received early in her entrepreneurial endeavor.
“One of my coaches said to just get started and you can build up from there, so that’s kind of what I did," Redic said. "I just got started, and then I added in freezers and then I added in more logos or a new screen. You know I just built one day at a time."
Customers have now become regulars at Kaleidoscoops — not just weekly, or daily, but some make multiple visits in a day.
Redic wants to invite anyone in the community to come visit, because, “at Kaleidoscoops, there’s a flavor for each person, each personality, each memory it brings back,” she said.
