Hospitality Design - December 2023 - 96

Photos by MARIA SVARBOVA and courtesy of MOIC
back space creating experiences with
maryellis bunn
Founder + CEO
The Museum of Ice Cream
New York
The lobby of the Museum of
Ice Cream in New York
The Museum of Ice Cream in New
York is home to a pink-clad bar
What led you to create the Museum of Ice Cream (MOIC) in 2016?
[My business partner and I] were walking around New York one
day, and all the ice cream shops had lines out their doors. I said,
'There's something here.' It's the connection ice cream can bring to
individuals. We put together our savings, and we built a pop-up in 18
days. We had hundreds of thousands of people on our wait list from a
website I had built during production. It's been a journey ever since.
How do you come up with the activations the MOIC is known for?
When I was a child, there was a need to escape. One of the worlds I
dreamt of had a backyard swing, and I would dream that I would swing
into a new world that was full of my favorite treats. I would land in an
ocean that was filled with ice cream and candy. That was [the starting
point for] our Sprinkle Pool, which we built in our first pop-up.
The MOIC has locations in New York, Austin, Chicago, and
Singapore with more planned for Miami and Boston. Did you think
it would grow so rapidly?
To think that we've seen millions of visitors through our doors still
feels unfathomable. When we started, the concept of experiential
didn't exist. We created a new vertical, which was exhilarating. It was
such an incredible puzzle to solve because there wasn't a playbook,
and we built everything from scratch.
Why do you think the MOIC resonates with your customers?
Humans desire to be with other humans. So much of what we talk
about, particularly within my creative teams, is what can we create
that is compelling enough to get us off our devices and into the real
world. Creating a lo-fi experience was part of our strategy. We build
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December 2023 hospitalitydesign.com
The Sprinkle Pool in the Museum of Ice Cream in New
York, captured by photographer Maria Svarbova
installations that don't need to be updated by technology, but that
doesn't mean we're not using technology in creative ways in our
design and build process or the backend supporting systems for our
operations.
How do you learn what guests want?
The best designers in the world are only as good as the customers
they're speaking to. In the early days, I used to watch the cameras
every night to understand where individuals were stopping. When
I'm at a location, I tend to sit outside at a nearby coffee shop or in
the subway when I'm in New York and [listen] to individuals who
have our shopping bags or are wearing a sweatshirt from one of our
locations.
You've been called the Millennial Walt Disney. What does that
mean to you?
It's quite humbling. More importantly, it's a call for other creators.
How do we build the next frontier? How do we build those types of
experiences that we can walk into with the same ease as going to
your local coffee shop or grocery store? The thing I ask myself is
'How do we make [our brand] accessible?'
What have you learned from this journey?
The opportunity of creation and the barrier between that is
ourselves. If we can dream of a world and fight the constructs [within
our imagination], anything is possible. hd
Hear more from Maryellis Bunn on HD's What I've Learned podcast at
hospitalitydesign.com/podcasts
http://www.hospitalitydesign.com/podcasts http://www.hospitalitydesign.com
Hospitality Design - December 2023

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