CHENNAI: The untrained eye might dismiss Jai Ice Cream’s humble presence on Choolaimedu High Road as just another perhaps, successful local business. After all, it is a small one-room facility, lined with freezer boxes and storage containers and an ice-cream machine. Flanked by other similarly small businesses, it has room for maybe five customers to be seated at a time. What may surprise the uninitiated is that the shop has about four-five customers all day long. And it has been this way for the past 47 years now.
When Selvaraj began the business back in 1975, when he was just 19 years old, little did he think that it would stand the test of time and manage to thrive even after the turbulence of the Covid years. “I’ve been seeing three generations of people come and go. Grandfathers will bring along their grandchildren and the little ones would say “Enga thatha kooda inga dhan ice-cream saaptaram!” It’s a thing of pride for them and certainly for me,” shares Selvaraj.
Defining success
The business has come a long way from its origin days, innovating its way in an effort to keep up with changing climes. “When I started the shop, there were maybe 400 others in the city. Now, it’s doubtful if even four of them survived. This is a difficult business to sustain. Then, there was no practice of going to a shop to eat ice-cream there. People would buy from the thallu vandi. These salesmen once worked all year; over time, their work was limited to the months of February-August.
The salt-ice mixture in the vandi that keeps the ice-cream cold would work against it and damage it in the months it is not in use. So, we would have to provide the salesmen with new vandis every season. This was just part of the problem,” Selvaraj narrates. The shop made its own ice on the premises too, another aspect that was difficult to sustain. In order to not just survive but thrive, Selvaraj decided early on that it was vital to keep offering something new to the customer.
It started off with kuchi ice in semiya, javvarisi and aval flavours. Then, came the fruit-flavoured kuchi ice. In the early 90s came the paal ice cream. “A Christian friend of mine used to hold a series of functions for Gandhi Jayanthi. There would be all kinds of stalls there. The proceeds from this event were being given to their church. I used to provide ice-cream every year. When we were trying to figure out what to do with the leftover, we decided to sell it at the store in cups and cones.
So, I started making ice-cream at the shop too,” he recounts. He also offered local variations of your Pepsi and Cola in the early years. And there were many takers for the ‘Pepsi ice’ — those long tubes of flavoured ice candy.
A solemn promise
Selvaraj found other ways to set his store apart too. At a time when the concept of an ice cream parlour was non-existent, he realised the need for it and set up his shop in such a way. Thanks to the corporation school across his store that had many students swarming the shopfront and dragging their parents out to it on weekends, he says.
Wanting to innovate with flavours, he experimented with ice-creams like Horlicks and biscuits, long before they became an exotic must-have. Today, the store offers a limited but diverse range of ice-cream in regular flavours and natural fruit-based ones — jackfruit is the upcoming flavour du season and there’s even a Lotus Biscoff special. Its jigarthanda has a loyal audience. There are drinks like rose milk and badam paal for those inclined. All this at three branches.
Yet, one thing has remained a constant — Selvaraj’s standing aim to offer high-quality ice cream at the lowest price. “Back in Rs 75, when people offered one kuchi ice for 5 paise, I would offer two. Even when the ingredients are expensive, I make sure that the price is as low as it can get. Where others offer fruit-flavoured ice cream for Rs 70, we have it here for Rs 20. Jigarthanda comes at just Rs 50. By now, people have come to associate this shop with these qualities; even if I want to change it now, I don’t think I can,” he says.
These days, it is Selvaraj’s son Prasad and nephew Sabari who run the shop. He barely visits. But, when he does, he is still met by regular customers and loyal patrons offering appreciation. This is all the wealth he has amassed in his lifetime, he says.
The shop is situated on Choolaimedu High Road, off Krishna-puram Street.