The Brigham's Connection

It looks like just another neighborhood ice cream parlor. There's a honky-tonk piano in one corner and Swedish ivy and wandering jews hang from the ceiling. You can put granola or wheat germ on your natural carob fudge ice cream. The manager, Jeff Lessard, whom everyone just calls Jeff, is an easygoing, non-professional-looking fellow who seems to have taken lessons from Steve, over in Somerville.

But Jeff, unlike Steve, is not his own boss. His store, Bic's, at 1702 Mass. Ave. near Radcliffe, is owned by Brigham's, Inc., and serves nothing but Brigham's ice cream. Bic's "pina colada" flavor, for example, is identical to Brigham's "natural pineapple coconut." The name Bic's is an acronym for Brigham's Ice Cream.

Bic's does not seem proud of its corporate connections. Last week, the Massachusetts Attorney General's office took Bic's to court and obtained a conseint judgment to force the store not to conceal its Brigham's ownership from customers. According to Paula Gold, chief of the state Consumer Protection division and attorney in the case, Bic's had "failed to disclose the true nature of its enterprise," an "unfair and deceptive practice" prohibited by the state Consumer Protection Act.

In signing the consent order, Brigham's agreed to pay $500 for investigation costs and, Gold said on Tuesday, "to place a sign in the window, clearly visible from the street, saying that Bic's serves Brigham's ice cream." The store also agreed to instruct its employees to respond honestly to customer questions about the Brigham's connection. Any violation will render the company liable to a $5000 fine.

Yesterday morning Bic's finally posted its sign, though perhaps not precisely as the judge envisioned. A small cardboard poster whispers that "All ice cream sold in this store in made by Brigham." But the sign is swamped by two blackboards and another sign that denounces, with a hundred-word essay in multi-colored chalks and inks, Steve's and other competitors. The overall message of the display seems to be--Jeff Lessard does not apologize.

Lessard denies, for example, that he ever misrepresented the nature of his enterprise to any customer. But Emily Cahan '78, who worked at Bic's last summer, said earlier this week that Lessard would "never give a straight answer" when asked whether Bic's and Brigham's ice cream were the same.

"He'd tell us to say just that it was Bic's own natural ice cream," Cahan said. She added that Lessard instructed his employees to carry boxes of cones with their arms placed so as to ensure that the Brigham's label on the boxes would not be seen by customers.

Lessard later admitted giving the order. "I wanted people to know that I was the person to come to, not Brigham's," he said.

Joe Grimes, president of Brigham's, acknowledged that some customers had been deceived about Bic's true nature. But Grimes charged that the court action had been initiated by a "hard-core group of anti-big business types in the area."

According to Grimes, this hard-core is "associated with some paralegals in the Attorney General's office," and the case grew out of their "cronyism." Grimes said that it was a "gross misuse of the Attorney General's office to be messing around investigating ice cream."

"Gold, reached Wednesday, did not seem shaken by Grimes's charge. "We're doing an awful lot," she said. "This matter is just one of a hundred cases we're involved with."

Bic's acquired some notoriety last summer from publicity gimmicks. On Wednesdays, for example, customers wearing bikinis and nothing else received free sundaes.

The gimmicky atmosphere carried over to employee relations as well. Mary B. Ridge '76 said yesterday that during a job interview last summer Lessard demanded that she stand on the counter and sing or dance.

Lessard acknowledged yesterday that he likes his employees to be "outgoing." "I might ask them to jump on a table and sing," he said, "or to carry a sandwich board to Harvard Square and back." If employees refuse, Lessard gives them or cuts their hours way back."

Lessard said that recently business has suffered because of publicity connected with the consent order. "We're not half as busy as we were," he said. Lessard believes that his troubles represent "the beginning of the end of the small ice cream parlor."

But Steve Herrell, of Steve's Ice Cream, said he is not worried. "It's not going to affect me," Herrell said.

Local ice cream sellers expressed anger at Bic's claim of selling "the only natural and best ice cream in Boston." "That's full of shit," said Fred Mojaver, owner of Fred's Ice Cream Shops in Cambridge and Boston. Lessard defended Bic's claim, but acknowledged that identically natural ice cream was on sale at Brigham's stores throughout the Boston area.

The manager believes that the state unfairly singled out Bic's for censure. Lessard said that there is no precise or legal definition of "natural" or "homemade" and that even Steve's and Kelly's use a "pre-made commercial ice cream mix."

Steve Herrell acknowledged that he uses a mix--manufactured by Hood's--but he hastened to explain: "This is not a powder, it's a fresh liquid, delivered four times a week and kept under refrigeration."

Herrell said that the "secret of my ice and salt freezer" and "my own hardening process" make Steve's ice cream different than any other in the Boston area. "The ultimate test is how its tastes," said Herrell, and he can tell the difference "very easily." Steve's ice cream is "of course" the best, Herrell said yesterday, "and so is our hot fudge and whipped cream."

But Herrell is considering switching from Hood's to a small dairy in Vermont for his mix. "It's not good business for a small place like mine to deal with such a large dairy," Herrell said. "People begin to think, oh, it's just Hood's ice cream--which is not true."

Ellen Kolemainen, spokesman for Kelley's Homemade Ice Cream in Boston, said on Wednesday that Kelley's uses a Hood's mix like Steve's. Kolemainen said that the mix contains butterfat cream, milk and a stabilizer--sodium algenate--to keep the milk and cream from separating. Because of Boston health regulations about pasteurization, she said, it would be "very difficult" for any small store to make its own mix.

But Kolemainen maintains that Kelley's essentially makes its own ice cream. "All we're buying is the raw ingredients," she said. Kolemainen called Kelley's she best ice cream in Boston. "Steve's is the only one that comes close," she said, "but ours is a little less grainy and a little firmer." And, she added conspiratorially, "we think he overflavors."

***

Tuesday evening Joe Grimes, president of Brigham's Inc., came to Bic's to answer questions and reassure the customers. Grimes appeared tan and fit, wearing double-knit navy slacks, a brown tie and Wallabies. When this reporter and a Crimson photographer turned out to be Grimes' only listeners, the executive related and began to reminisce. He described how he first encountered "the natural thing" while working for a supermarket in California, and how he became convinced that Brigham's could develop a natural ice cream without "putting down our main product." Shaking his head sadly, he decried the recent trend among some students denigrating large businesses.

As Grimes talked, Jeff Lessard, looking more out-of-breath schlemiel than on-the-move capitalist, in his work clothes and half-grown moustache, ambled over Bic's and Brigham's, the natural next to the corporate. Grimes put his arm around his employee's shoulder. "Someday," he said, smiling to the camera, "someday this man is going to take my job."