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For Immediate Release
April 24, 2003
OAKLAND, Calif, (April 24, 2003) - Ben and Jerry’s, the popular and socially-conscious super premium ice cream maker, is hosting the official Grand Opening of its newest scoop shop in the Port of Oakland’s Jack London Square Tuesday, April 29th with a noon press conference and ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Oakland Vice Mayor Nancy Nadel, NBA Golden State Warriors forward Jeri Welsch and local high school legend and future University of California, Berkeley basketball star Leon Powe are all scheduled celebrity scoopers for the event at Washington and Embarcadero streets in Jack London Square. Members of the Port’s Board of Commissioners and other dignitaries are expected also to attend.
The new store’s opening coincides with Free Cone Day, an annual Ben & Jerry’s company tradition celebrated at scoop shops worldwide in honor of the company’s first year of success in a converted Vermont gas station. Free scoops of ice cream will be served from noon to 8 p.m.; in turn customers are encouraged to make a voluntary donation to a local charity. In Oakland, ice cream lovers’ graciousness will support the Warriors Foundation, the non-profit charity of the local professional basketball team.
“We are pleased to announce the opening of another popular destination on the Oakland waterfront for residents and visitors to our city to enjoy,” said Omar Benjamin, the Port’s director of Commercial Real Estate.
“Ben & Jerry’s socially conscious mission and their history of providing a good product and good service makes them an ideal match with the Port’s efforts to introduce more businesses into the Jack London Square area, particularly those that echo the Port’s social equity philosophy,” he said. (The Port of Oakland owns the Jack London Square property, which is managed by the CAC property management company.)
The scoop shop franchisee, Ben & Jerry’s of California, was equally excited about the new store.“We’d been researching various areas and we eventually felt the site in Jack London Square provided us a prime location,” said Corey Gale, regional manager for Ben & Jerry’s of California. “Where can you find a better environment to stroll along the waterfront with a Cherry Garcia cone?”
The 1,250-square-foot store, across the street from the Jack London Cinemas, is open seven days a week, from noon to 10 p.m. The scoop shop will employ between 10 and12 workers, Gale said.
Ben & Jerry’s was founded in 1978 in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont, by two childhood friends and a borrowed initial $12,000 investment. The company currently distributes ice cream, frozen yogurt, sorbet, and novelty products nationwide as well as in select supermarkets and scoop shops.
The Port of Oakland is the fourth-largest container port in the United States. Established in 1927, the Port owns and operates some 19 miles of waterfront, including Jack London Square; more than 900 acres of maritime terminal facilities and Oakland International Airport which served 12.7 million passengers and handled more than 600,000 metric tons of air cargo in 2002.
Contact:
Rhonda Hirata
(510) 645-9283
Marilyn Sandifur
(510) 627-1193
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