Seattle Sorbets owner Claiborne Bell brings sweetness to community and business owners
Claiborne Bell’s approach to his family business is similar to the way he approaches those who rent space from him in Distinguished Foods Commissary Kitchen. The second-generation ice cream maker bought the business from his father three years ago, and carries on the family legacy with pride. He also has built a second family of sorts, a group of chefs and business owners who use his facilities to run their own upstart restaurants.
“You're here in a community of people who are already in the food business,” Bell said. “The other people in the kitchen will be your first customer. We buy each other's food, we connect each other with catering, things like that.”
Bell has used his knowledge of the industry to not only run a successful Sorbet company and guide it through the pandemic, but also to inspire and educate another generation of restauranteurs.
“You come over, and maybe you don't know that much about marketing, you don't know about building websites, you don't know about business banking, you don't know how important business credit is. Maybe you’re just making burritos and you need guidance on all that other stuff,” Bell said. “We kind of give you full package.”
Bell, for example, has partnered with Crumbiest Life Bakehouse which also runs out of his kitchen. When the bakehouse gets a cookie order, they also give customers the option to purchase ice cream or sorbet which they can then take out of the facility’s freezer and deliver.
“He can offer more in his menu without having to add any complexity to what he does just because of the people here in the kitchen already,” Bell said.
The sorbets themselves have been perfected over many years. Bell is a fourteen year veteran of the industry, and has worked with many local restaurants. The most popular flavors, Honey-Vanilla, was a collaboration with Trey Lamont’s Jerk Shack.
“That was a really cool one. It was a good thing and I really enjoy making ice cream and sorbet,” Bell said.
It hasn’t all been easy for Bell. Just two weeks after purchasing the business from his father, one of the main freezers went out. Bell said the company lost nearly $20,000 worth of sorbet, a foreboding start to a year which featured a global pandemic that caused restaurants to order less sorbet and pare down desert menus.
“To be honest, when I originally bought the company, there was some questions about if I did the right thing. There were times I was a little down,” Bell said. “I stuck with it, though, because I thought it would be long term. You just have to adapt and we’ve been climbing back.”
That persistence has been paying off lately, as the commissary kitchen has been steadily returning to pre-pandemic levels and more sorbet orders start to come back in
“A lot of restaurants go out of business because they're so busy trying to force things out to folks,” Bell said “That's not what people want. You have to serve what the people are looking for.”
You can learn more about Seattle Sorbets and order here, and check out Distinguished Foods Commissary Kitchen here
