Software by Day, Soft Serve by Night

Jamal Jawad is a software validation engineer for Ford’s SYNC infotainment system.?At night and on the weekends, however, he’s serving up frozen custard and other frosty treats as CEO of?The Custard Company, a specialty ice cream shop in Dearborn.

“I love my job at Ford,” said Jawad, 32. “I also love ice cream.?I could eat it for every meal. Literally, I could wake up and have ice cream.?I could go to sleep and have it. It’s my favorite dessert.”

Jawad said entrepreneurship comes naturally to him.?His father owned a gas station for many years, and all his relatives own gas stations or car service-related businesses.???

“I’m the only one in my family who has a corporate job,” he said.?“But I always wanted to have something on the side that I could fall back on if anything happened.”

So, when a pizza place went up for sale across from the elder Jawad’s gas station, a light bulb went in off in the younger Jawad’s head.?He used his life savings to buy the property and took out a loan to purchase the equipment he needed to make soft serve frozen custard.?

Though he loved ice cream, he didn’t know anything about how to make it.

“I ‘YouTubed’ and learned everything I could about ice cream shops and suppliers and different things,” he said.?“And it just worked out like that.”

Jawad opened The Custard Company in the summer of 2019.?Little did he know that the COVID pandemic was right around the corner.

“We were all so confused when the pandemic first hit.?We didn’t know what was going to happen with us, both personally and with the business,” he explained.?“So, I closed my doors in March of 2020, and we stayed closed for 8 weeks.?As a new business, you don’t know if it’s going to open back up and be successful or if you’re going to keep your doors closed forever.”?

But when Jawad announced that the business would be re-opening on May 1 of 2020 – with safety measures in place like six-foot distancing between customers, face masks and plexiglass inside – more than 100 people lined up outside.

Jawad enjoys coming up with new recipes, or what he calls his “creations.”

“We became known for injecting our cones with different flavors and then rolling the cone in a topping.?We call them loaded cones,” he said.?“And that’s something different. No other ice cream shop in Michigan does it, so it sets us apart from everyone else.”

Jawad said one of the loaded cones was inspired by a 90s treat called Dunkaroos – a snack pack of cookies with frosting dip.

“I use vanilla custard as the base, inject it with the vanilla frosting and roll it in Dunkaroos cookies,” he said.

Another specialty is The Sweet Bun.

“It’s a hot-pressed donut ice cream sandwich,” he explained.?“The donut stays hot on the outside, but the ice cream stays cold in the middle.?So, when we cut it in half, it’s a mixture of hot and cold.”

The Mangonada is another unique creation.?

“Lots of Latin American restaurants serve Mangonadas.?It’s a mango smoothie with a hot spice called chamoy and tajin, a chile-lime salt, on top of it.?So, I figured I can do that with ice cream,” said Jawad, noting that he makes the Mangonada using mango pineapple Dole Whip twisted with the different spices.

“I always like to drop something new on the menu, just to stay ahead of the curve,” he said.?“Most of the time I make the recipes up myself, or if I see somebody else doing it, I put my own twist on it.”?

Everything on the menu at The Custard Company is customizable.?In addition to the specialty items, the shop serves up shakes, flurries, slushies, sundaes and Wowffles – ice cream sandwiches made with Eggo waffles.?There are three flavors of frozen custard available every day – chocolate, vanilla and ashta, which is a Middle Eastern cream flavored with rose water and orange blossom water.?And Jawad adds new flavors each week as specials.?He also offers classic hard scoop Guernsey ice cream.

Jawad said he never expected the business to take off the way it did.???

“The support from the community and my family has been tremendous,” he said.?“And we’re pretty popular on?TikTok.?We have a verified account with 265,000 followers, which is really cool.”

The Custard Company is also on?Instagram,?Facebook?and?YouTube.?The business is doing so well that Jawad is opening a second location in Dearborn Heights at the end of June.?Both shops will have outdoor patios where guests can sit and enjoy the frozen treats, and the new location in Dearborn Heights will also include a drive-through.

When asked how he makes time for everything – a full-time job at Ford, a successful business plus two young girls at home (ages 3 and 10 months) – Jawad said, “I don’t sleep.”?

“I push through it because I love what I do, and I always say I’ll sleep later on in my life,” he said.

The Custard Company?is located at 2801 Monroe Street in Dearborn.?The new location in Dearborn Heights – set to open at the end of June – is located at 23845 West Warren.?Hours of operation are 1 p.m. to 11 p.m., and they take online orders.