Meet Ashley Barrow | A mom on a mission to grow and help other people grow their businesses.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ashley Barrow and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ashley, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
COVID is the short and sweet answer. When the world was shutting down due to the pandemic, I was just getting started. It started out with me making masks for free for all of our medical staff after being furloughed from my regular job. Then went to me wanting to set up a booth at an artisan market with all of my handmade items. After doing extensive research I realized all of the fees were just unreasonable and way too expensive, especially for someone just getting started. This inspired me to create my own artisan market with an affordable fee because I wanted everyone to go home feeling successful and not leave feeling discouraged. I started out with 15 vendors behind a church in their parking lot to currently having over 80 consistent vendors and food trucks spread throughout an outlet mall. Doing these markets introduced me to an amazing family that owned a shaved ice trailer, Frost Bite Ice, and was getting ready to head back to Alaska. (Obviously they don’t need a shaved ice trailer in Alaska} They reached out to my husband and I and asked if we knew anyone that would be interested in purchasing their trailer and without hesitation we jumped at the opportunity. We’ve had our trailer for almost a year now and couldn’t be happier with everything we’ve been able to accomplish. My favorite thing is handing out one of our specialty combinations that we call the “Lisa Frank,” which consists of cotton candy flavor, grape flavor, a chunk of actual cotton candy, sprinkles, whipped cream and a lollipop. The eyes on the kids when they see it coming over the counter is something I look forward to every single time we open our window. Having my two young kids work alongside my husband and I is such a unique experience, I love that Frost Bite Ice has turned into our little family ran business. I’ve never felt this fulfilled in any other job that I’ve worked at before and I am so thankful!

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Frost Bite Ice is a shaved ice trailer serving you winter in your cup during those hot summer days, or even cold winter nights if you’re up for it! We are all about giving everyone that comes through our window a unique experience. Our vibe is 90’s themed so you can expect to only hear throw-back jams from every genre on our playlist, and have a childhood memory sparked when you read the names of our combinations. (They’re based off of 90’s cartoons).

Getting to where we are now with the trailer from where we first started was so much more work than I ever anticipated. I give so much props to all business owners. I think the hardest thing for my husband and I was to find a flow that worked for us when we would get a big rush of customers. We wanted to give out quality product but didn’t want everyone standing in line for hours. So we managed to create different stations in our trailer to speed the process up but also insuring that we were giving out appetizing-looking products. Working together in such a way that we didn’t even really need to speak to know what was going on.

The greatest lesson I’ve learned is to not dwell on the mistakes, to just embrace them and move forward.

I want everyone to know, or take-away from our story that sometimes taking a risk is WORTH IT! You miss 100% of the opportunities that you don’t take.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
There are a few must-do activities that I make sure I do with anyone from out of town before they head back home. Number one being the Grand Canyon…at NIGHT! Packing up a cooler to take up north to see the Grand Canyon while the sun is up and having a picnic is an experience in itself but staying until the sun sets and being able to see every single star including the Milk Way is a once in a life time experience that I feel everyone should see. Another laid back day trip activity is taking a drive up to Sedona, It’s the perfect place to get some photos for the gram, especially in front of the Blue McDonalds. For our last day trip, we would go to the Out of Africa Wildlife Park, making sure we got there in time for their feeding tour. One of the staff members takes you around with them while they feed the animals so we get to be up close and personal while they teach you so many different things about them. My personal favorite was listening to the hyenas laugh. There are a few things in town that are fun for the whole family. Starting with a trip to one of my favorite museums, Hall of Flame. This museum has so many pieces of history, including artifacts from 9/11 and artifacts from the local Yarnell Hill Fire. The next experience I wouldn’t want my guests to miss is the Phoenix Art Museum. There are no words to explain the creativity behind some of the art work displayed. It’ll definitely leave your guests speechless. For a fun casual browse I would recommend Desert Ridge on a Friday night, there is always live music and it’s so much fun to grab some food and taking it over by the stage to sit back and enjoy the talented performer while you divulge on some delicious pizza from Slices. Following the pizza night up with Arizona’s BEST Indian Fried Bread, out in Cave Creek. They are a family owned business called Indian Village and my family has been eating there for over two decades. I remember going every Sunday as a kid! We would end our week off with taking our favorite card games, some blankets, take-out from Julio G’s and going up the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs to set up a picnic with the most beautiful view overlooking the city. If you drive all the way up to where the restaurant is, there is a small parking lot that you can pull into to set up your picnic.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d love to give a shout out to Jessica for even considering us and trusting us to take over Frost Bite Ice. This has been such an incredible journey that would not have been possible for her! She has been a huge motivation to keep Frost Bite Ice fresh! I definitely want to make sure she knows she made a great choice and I don’t ever want to let her down. Another group that deserves recognition is my parents. Whenever my husband and I have a late night event, they hang out with the kiddos and make sure they are well taken care of so we don’t have to worry about anything other than having fun working! Lastly, I’d love to thank two other businesses for their part in the amazing photos we have and all of our marketing materials. StickitAZ.com is a family owned business that creates our business cards, our banners, our decals and so much more! Such an incredible business to collab with for our birthday parties that we host! The other business is RubiMetz. She has done so many last minute photoshoots for our trailer and has really taken our business to the next level. Rubi has also collabed with me on more than one of my giveaways for a birthday party. Both businesses are very helpful and selfless.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fbishavedice/

Other: frostbiteicetruck@gmail.com

Image Credits
Rubi Metz