It’s clear skies for ‘snow’ sellers
When she was going to UC Irvine, Kathy Vu wanted to become an optometrist.
But after graduation she eyed an all-together-different pursuit: food.
Fresh Thai iced tea in mason jars wrapped with black ribbons. Crispy, yet soft, macaroon cookies topped with churro cinnamon. Soft-serve ice cream infused with Fruity Pebbles. And a sweet Asian dessert called snow, which has a consistency that can only be described as somewhere between frozen yogurt and shaved ice.
These and other treats are served in her small chain of three Orange County dessert shops called Snow Monster. The unusual concoctions look great on social media, a key to their popularity. Snow Monster landed at No. 8 on the OC Weekly’s list of the 25 most Instagrammed foods in the county.
Vu, a 24-year-old Huntington Beach resident, founded the treat shop with boyfriend Ta Chirayos in 2012. But finding a location wasn’t easy.
The pair wanted to open in Westminster ahead of the snow trend that was taking Orange County by, well, storm. The plans melted when potential landlords questioned the young couple’s entrepreneurial prowess.
“They were like, ‘You don’t really have a track record. Do you have a rich uncle?’” Vu said. “We said no, and the deal didn’t go through. We wanted to do this on our own. They ripped the rug under our feet.”
Luckily, within a few months, another landlord gave Vu and Chirayos a chance at a nearby location on Bolsa Avenue, also in Westminster. A few snow shops had opened in the area in the ensuing time, but Snow Monster was an immediate hit.
Then the sweets market became blanketed with snow stores, requiring the duo to differentiate their stores.
“If everyone’s doing it, no one’s going to make any money,” Chirayos said. “So then we did fresh-baked cookie sandwiches, which at the time no one did. Then we did made-to-order macaroon sandwiches. We were always thinking, ‘How can we do things differently?’”
While snow remains one of the most popular desserts at Snow Monster — it’s named after the mythical Abominable Snowman — it is now bested in sales by Thai Iced Tea, which is made with tea leaves imported from Thailand and served in take-home mason jars, and the macaroon ice cream sandwiches.
The chain’s three locations, Westminster, Irvine and Huntington Beach, sell a combined 1,500 mason jar drinks and 1,000 macaroon ice cream sandwiches a day, the owners estimated.
“This was just a way for us to create happiness for our community,” Vu said. “We wanted to make desserts because they make everyone happy, whether they’re having a good day or a bad day. It’s something that just picks you up.”
Vu and Chirayos said they’ve had to keep up with customer demand and food trends. They’ve eliminated underperforming items, such as sweet waffles, and added new confections like cotton candy.
The two are working on new products but did not want to reveal details.
“We’re not going to do anything way out there,” Chirayos said. “But at the same time, we want our customers to get the products we’re known for and try something that’s kind of adventurous. Even though our menu changes here and there, there will always be our core components, like our mason jars.”
Which leads back to making food that’s photogenic. Vu and Chirayos noticed right away that customers were uploading images of their desserts onto social media.
@SnowMonsterOC has more than 12,700 followers on Instagram.
“The way they interact with the desserts, especially the millennials, it has to be aesthetically pleasing and taste good,” Chirayos said. “People are always Instagramming their food now, and our mason jar is really popular on Instagram.
“People don’t just eat with their mouths anymore. They’re doing it with their eyes and phones. We create this platform for them to come and enjoy their desserts.”
Vu and Chirayos said one of the reasons they have become popular among young people is because they have in their restaurants activities like Jenga sets and gigantic playing cards.
“We want to create a place in which the community can come and hang out,” Chirayos said. “We’ve deviated from that as a community. People are watching TV or playing on their phones. We wanted to create a place where people could enjoy desserts, and not a to-go place. We want people to come out and talk. We focus on customer experience.”
The Snow Monster owners are in talks to open three new locations, two in Los Angeles and one in Anaheim, proving that first landlord, who wouldn’t rent to them, wrong.
If You Go:
What: Snow Monster
Where: 9600 Bolsa Avenue in Westminster; 17406 Beach Blvd. in Huntington Beach; and 4255 Campus Drive in Irvine
When: Noon to midnight
Cost: $3.50 for a cookie sundae to $8.50 for a large snow
Info: snowmonsteroc.com