It has been said you can’t buy happiness, but you can buy ice cream – and that’s basically the same thing.
And ice cream entrepreneur Zach Villanueva, owner of Sage Creamery in ʻEwa, is committed to keeping his customers happy with an ever-rotating array of island flavors made with organic and locally sourced ingredients from vendors like Lāʻie Vanilla Company, ChadLou’s Coffee Roasters in Kailua, Mānoa Chocolate in Kailua, and Mānoa Honey and Mead in Wahiawā.
Villanueva and his wife, Courtney, started making ice cream in Courtney’s mom’s garage in March 2020, right at the start of the pandemic.
At the time, Villanueva was working full-time as the manager of the tasting room of Kō Hana Distillers, which makes rum. Initially, making ice cream was only intended to be a “side hustle.” However, by August 2020, just a few months into the business, Villanueva went all in and started working full time on his ice cream business.
While many established businesses had to make rapid pandemic-related pivots to survive, being a start-up business, Sage Creamery didn’t have any set ways of doing business and Villanueva was able to roll with the pandemic restrictions.
“During the lockdown, we couldn’t leave our homes except for business, so we started delivering ice cream directly to customers’ homes,” he said.
This yielded phenomenal results. “The business grew organically and took on a life of its own,” Villanueva said.
Sage Creamery has now been in business for more than four years, and last February they celebrated the grand opening of their first brick-and-mortar store.
Of course, for an ice cream business, having reliable, high-quality freezers is critical.
So, Villanueva reached out to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and applied for a business loan. He went through the loan process and, once the loan was approved, he was able to purchase four brand new, top-tier freezers for their new shop.
Although the popularity of their ice cream has grown over the years, Sage Creamery continues to make it in small batches to maintain quality control – about 100 gallons a week to meet the current demand.
Besides the Villanuevas and one full-time employee, their crew consists of 10 part-timers. A typical workday begins at 10:00 a.m. and ends at 7:00 p.m. six days a week. Initially, they used a commercial kitchen in Iwilei to make their ice cream, but now production takes place at their shop in ʻEwa.
Located across the highway from UH West Oʻahu, students and professors are regular Sage Creamery customers, with faculty members often ordering ice cream for special events.
In addition to serving walk-in customers at the store, Sage Creamery provides weekly orders of ice cream to Diamond Head Market & Grill and to Monkeypod Kitchen.
“Chef Jose (Gonzalez-Maya, executive chef at Monkeypod Kitchen) reached out to us to supply his restaurant and now Sage Creamery ice cream is mentioned by name on their menu,” said Villanueva, proudly.
One might describe their journey to success as a… rocky road.
“I bought a $20 ice cream maker from E-Bay and read cookbooks to learn how to make ice cream,” said Villanueva. “It was a lot of trial and error.”
“I made my first batch in 2016, and Courtney and I agreed it was the worst ice cream we ever tasted,” he laughed.
Today, Sage Creamery is known for its super premium ice creams. One thing that sets their ice cream apart is its a higher fat content, resulting in a creamier texture.
At their shop, customers are greeted with a menu of locally inspired original ice cream flavors. Some of their signature flavors include Lāʻie Snow Cream (made with vanilla beans and sweetened condensed milk); Mango Sticky Rice (a non-dairy coconut and pandan sorbet with mango jam) and Ube Crinkle Cookie (ube ice cream with ube cookie chunks).
There are also special monthly flavors like Peanut Butter and Jelly, Banana Lumpia, Thai Tea Oreo, and Kauaʻi Kūlolo.
Stories are important to Villanueva, who fondly remembers listening to his grandmother’s stories about growing up on Hawaiʻi Island. He carries on that storytelling tradition by sharing his own stories about Sage Creamery’s ice creams, ingredients and inspiration.
For example, their “Merrie Monarch” ice cream is made with strawberries and Kō Hana Distillers rum, “because King David Kalākaua loved strawberry ice cream and loved to drink,” Villanueva explained.
But the most important story Villanueva tells is the story of his late brother, Daniel, for whom Sage Creamery was named.
Daniel, who passed in August 2018, was a seeker, wise beyond his years. His ʻohana referred to him as their “sage” (a profoundly wise person). His life journey led him to the rainforests of the Amazon, where he spent time with an Indigenous healer – a deeply spiritual experience.
Villanueva said that his brother lived a life of discovery, love and wonder, inspiring those he left behind. And thus, Sage Creamery is named for, and honors the memory of, Daniel Villanueva.
91-3575 Kaulualoko Street #3005
in ʻEwa Beach, Oʻahu
To see their latest flavors follow them on Instagram:
sagecreamery
