Rafael Gonzalez’s dream of owning an ice cream shop never melted.
He got the idea when he was 4 years old, living in Chihuahua, Mexico. “I knew I was going to do this for life,” says Gonzales, 36.
He and his brothers, Ari and Alberto Gonzalez, are now owners of seven La Michoacana ice cream shop locations in the Mid-South.
On a recent Thursday evening, customers streamed into the La Michoacana at 4091 Summer Avenue. They stood in a long but fast-moving line that stopped at a sign reading, “Wait here for your turn!” The walls on the almost-cafeteria-size room were painted pink, blue, and white. People began filling up the numerous tables and chairs, frozen treats in hand.
It Began in Michoacán
The La Michoacana story began in the 1900s when a group of people from Italy moved to Mexico and taught residents of Michoacán how to make sandals, guitars, and ice cream, Gonzalez says. “This was in a little bitty town, Tocumbo, in Michoacán, Mexico.”
The sandals were made out of rubber and leather, the acoustic guitars were built out of wood, and the ice cream was chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. “So, basically the first ice cream in Mexico was in Michoacán,” he says.
Roberto Andrade was one of the first people they taught to make ice cream in Michoacán, Rafael says. That was the start of the “La Michoacana” ice cream shops. Andrade then began putting the shops “in every single state of Mexico.”
In 1980, Rafael’s family moved from their home in Michoacán to Chihuahua, Mexico. Rafael’s dad, Alberto Gonzalez, began working for La Michoacana. Luis Andrade, the grandson of the founder, taught Alberto how to make the ice cream and the paletas — frozen fruit-flavored treats on a stick.
Four years later, Alberto opened his own La Michoacana shop in Chihuahua.
“I was born in an ice cream shop,” Rafael says. “I learned to walk in one of them. I learned to speak in one of them.”
And, he says, “When I was a little bitty kid, I said, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to open a store.’”
Once he was 8 years old, Rafael began helping his father in the store. “I was one of those kids asking my dad, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘What is that for?’ That’s how I learned. He had a lot of patience and he explained to me everything I asked.”
The recipes weren’t written down on paper, Rafael says. Somebody just teaches you how to do it “and it kind of sticks in your mind.”
His father wanted to put Rafael through college. “I said, ‘No, dad. I’m not going to college.’’’ He already had his life figured out. “I knew what I wanted to do and I’m still doing it. I graduated from high school and I was ready to come to the United States and open a store.”
A Sweet Move
In 2006, Rafael, who was 18, and Ari, who was 15, moved by themselves to Horn Lake, Mississippi. “To study English was one of the main reasons we came to the United States,” Rafael says.
They moved to Horn Lake because one of their cousins lived there, Ari says. He and Rafael and their brother Alberto now live in the area, he says.
Ari “fell in love with the idea of opening La Michoacana in Mississippi,” Rafael says.
Two years later — on March 7, 2008 — Rafael and Ari opened their first La Michoacana store at 1038 Goodman Road in Horn Lake. They opened without any advertising on TV or radio. “We were nervous,” Rafael says. “We just opened it and started working.” They thought, “Let’s see where it goes.”
The first day was a success. “Thank God there were a lot of customers that day. They were waiting for it to be open.” Customers told them they’d been waiting 10 years for the type of ice cream La Michoacana makes. It tastes like the ice cream they used to eat in whatever little town in Mexico they were from, Rafael says.
When they opened, they were making 18 flavors of ice cream and close to 30 flavors of frozen treats. Today, La Michoacana makes 36 flavors of ice cream and 50 flavors of frozen treats.
Their shops, like their flavors, grew. “After the first year we opened in Horn Lake, we opened the one on Winchester [6635 Winchester Road]. Then the next year, we did the Summer Avenue location, the biggest and busiest one.”
The first Summer Avenue location was in a 1,400-square-foot space at 4075 Summer. Five years later, they moved a few doors down to their current 5,000-square-foot space on Summer Avenue.
The next store was at 830 North Germantown Parkway, Suite 105-106, in Cordova, Tennessee. That was followed by two shops in Little Rock, Arkansas. They then opened one in Jackson, Tennessee, but, Rafael says, “After Covid, we had to close that one up.” Hopefully, he says, they’re going to open another shop in Jackson within the next two years.
They make all the ice cream and paletas — and one flavor of sherbet (lime) — at their 3,000-square-foot factory in Walls, Mississippi. They begin making everything at 6 “every morning,” Rafael says. It’s “ready to go” by 4 that afternoon.
Rafael and his brothers, along with eight employees, work at the shop Monday through Friday. They deliver the ice cream and paletas to the stores just about every afternoon. Saturdays and Sundays are strictly delivery days. “We all work together and we all do the same thing.”
Each day they make 150 15-liter buckets of ice cream and 3,000 to 4,000 paletas. “We split all the flavors into three days.”
Rafael starts working at 6 a.m. And he’s the last one to go home at 10 or 11 p.m., he says.
Fresh and Authentic Frozen Treats
Their ice cream is still made in “small batches,” Rafael says. Some businesses keep ice cream on the shelf for a long time. And that’s after it’s already been in a warehouse for a long period. Plus, it may have been made some time before it was delivered to the warehouse. La Michoacana ice cream “has never been in the freezer more than three days,” Rafael says. It was made either “the day before or the same day.”
Their ice cream “doesn’t have any preservatives and it’s all natural. The cream is a mixture of vanilla, butter, and coconut cream.”
“A lot of the fruit comes from Mexico,” Rafael says. Like nance, which are yellow berries, but not as sweet as fruit like apricots.
Other fruits they use in their ice cream and paletas include mamey, which is “like papaya. It also grows in Mexico”; pine nuts, which “almost taste like pecans”; and prickly pear, a “seasonal flavor” with a citrus taste.
Their other brother, Enrique Gonzalez, who lives in Chihuahua, helps them get supplies they can’t get in the United States.
Rafael, Ari, and their brother Alberto want to open more La Michoacana stores. “The idea is, yes, to keep growing.” But they don’t want to open stores all over the United States. “I would like to keep it around here. Just in the Mid-South.”
Rafael doesn’t want the stores to be too spread out because his customers, who he’s become friends with over the years, want to see him. And he wants to be able to get to each store each week. “We’d like to grow, but to grow into something I can handle.”
We All Scream
As for his product, Rafael admits he eats “plenty” of ice cream. “I have to make sure that it’s good.”
His wife Ana, though, “can go through a quart of ice cream a day. Every day. She loves ice cream. She says marrying an ice cream guy was a blessing for her.”
Their daughters Shayla and Ellie also are big ice cream fans.
Strawberries and cream made with homemade jelly is Rafael’s favorite ice cream flavor. And it’s been his favorite since he was a child. It’s “one of those flavors that stick in your mind.”
He prefers the spicy-flavored frozen fruit treats, including spicy lime, mango, cucumber, and pineapple.
La Michoacana also makes a “frozen sour spicy fruit treat,” which comes in a paleta or in a cup. “It’s just frozen mango with sugar. It’s got this sauce, chamoy, which is a mixture of peppers and limes. That makes it not as spicy, but makes it sour.”
Every once in a while they’ll “pull up a new flavor” of ice cream or paleta at La Michoacana, Rafael says. The “German,” one of their more recent ice cream flavors, is their take on a German chocolate cake. It’s made with almond, coconut, and pecans and comes in a chocolate or a vanilla base.
La Michoacana also sells salty food, which balances the sweetness of the ice cream. They sell nachos, corn on the cob, and elotes, or grilled corn on the cob with mayonnaise and cotija cheese.
They also feature chicharrones, pickled pork skins, in a salad made of cabbage, avocado, cheese, sour cream, tomato, and hot sauce. The ingredients are put in a flour shell and fried.
A Family Affair
Their dad, who is retired, visits “every two or three months” from his home in Chihuahua. He and his wife Sacorro recently were in Horn Lake. “He’s the biggest supervisor and the biggest inspector.”
Alberto makes sure his sons are doing everything right. “He was strict with us and still is. If he doesn’t like it, he’s going to throw it away: ‘You’re not going to sell this.’ He wants to make sure everything is run the same way in each store.”
They’re busy year round, but traffic is heavier, obviously, in the summertime. “I counted last Sunday. It was 42 15-liter buckets on Summer. And I want to say more than 3,000 [paletas] a day.”
Like his forebears, Rafael never wrote down any recipes. “Everything is in my mind. Basically it’s a tradition. And, hopefully, my daughters will continue. And I will teach them how to do it so they can learn the way to make it.”
For about a decade, Jim and Virginia Cavender have been stopping at La Michoacana on Sundays for ice cream or paletas. “We just love all the flavors, the quality of the ice cream,” Jim says. “It’s always top-notch.”
The ice cream or paletas will be their dinner that night, Virginia says.
They got to know the family after they visited the Summer Avenue store on the night of Rafael’s birthday celebration. They were invited to stay for the party. “They’re just such a great family,” Jim says.
Virginia, a former school teacher, even tutored Rafael’s oldest daughter at one time.
They surprise Virginia with something different every Sunday she visits La Michoacana. “I take a picture and put it on Facebook every Sunday night,” she says.
Out-of-town friends are captivated by Virginia’s photos. “When they come to Memphis they want to get something like I had.”
“This is my life,” Rafael says. “This is my place. And I would like to come to my shops every day and hang out and work. Because, having been doing this all my life, even if I retire, I’ll still be doing it. I’ll still be coming in. I’ll be the one opening and the one to close.”
Michael Donahue