Heladería Adonai Sweetens the Lives of its Customers in Hormigueros
Source: El Nuevo Día
Hormigueros.- Arriving at Heladería Adonai in Homigueros' Urban Market is like entering a sweet dimension that promises to delight adults and children alike. Its variety of recipes invites you to immerse yourself in delicious temptations.
There you can create your own ice cream, milkshake, and frappé combination and refreshing lemonades that will help sweeten your life and beat the heat. This in a family atmosphere that is run by its owners, Rosalyne Santana-Vega and her husband, José Cruz-Soto.
The 38-year-old woman is responsible for the success of her project, which began in the garage of her house with the confection of limbelados, after the father of her three children lost his job.
"Sweets always caught my attention, but it was when my husband became unemployed that I told him: 'Let's do limbelados.' But he didn't want to because we were going to run out of money for that week; we only had about $30 left," she recalled.
However, Rosalyne convinced her husband. He never imagined how quickly the concept that suddenly became an ice cream parlor would catch on with the creation of 62 flavors, including carrot, praline, pistachio, almond and strawberry cheesecake.
"I had never made limbelado, but refreshing sweets had always caught my attention. I also don't have any studies in pastry or ice cream making. But we were left unemployed and I wanted to support my family," confessed the woman who worked in the private sector.
"It's called limbelado, but it's more like an ice cream. It's creating ice cream by hand; each recipe is done by hand, giving it volume which makes it creamy. We called it limbelado because it came in a small 7-ounce cup and the customer could choose the flavor," she explained.
It should be noted that Santana-Vega comes from San Germán and moved to El pueblo del milagro (The Town of the Miracle) 17 years ago, after marrying her husband from Hormigueros.
However, the opportunity to set up the business in the Urban Market came in 2017, but without the limbelados. This is Heladería Adonai, which means: "Under the blessing of God."
"It was through a proposal when the municipality built the Urban Market. I made my husband bring me every night to look at a specific kiosk after work. They didn't give me the one I wanted, but they gave me the [kiosk number] 5, because God knows where you need to be," she confessed. She highlighted that the business opened on March 9, 2019.
"We started here with nothing, because it's the best way to start a business. When you earn things with the sweat of your brow and nobody handing things over to you, you appreciate them. When they hand you over the keys to something so you can manage it and continue forward, you will never understand the sacrifice made by those who started with nothing," she argued.
This is how her new journey began and "people still ask me when am I going to do the limbelados again. I answer that, at some point, God will give me the opportunity to have a place where I can make them. Right now, I can't do that here. But I work an ice cream shop with 20 flavors of ice cream," she explained.
"The ice creams we use are Edy's Premium, as well as the frappés, milkshakes, alcoholic shakes, lemonades, chocolate cakes filled with fresh jam and topped with ice cream. We serve them in cups, wafers, and waffle cups, which I buy from Puerto Rican companies to collaborate with each other," she explained.
"We do everything here; there are more than 10 products in each line. The great thing about it is that the customer can create their dessert to their liking. "If you come with the idea of eating a brownie, but you want it chopped and warm, with ice cream, peanuts, Nutella, granola; whatever the customer wants," she added.
As for the sundaes, they also prepare them to the customers' liking, with more than 20 alternatives, five syrups and more than 10 toppings.
"The things I sell the most, besides sundaes, are frappés and smoothies. They're prepared here on the spot: strawberry, banana, pineapple, mango, among other flavors," she said.
This way, Rosalyne and her husband, José, tackled the economic crisis that resulted in job loss. They transformed the experience into a blessing, above all, through a teamwork effort.