Sweet treat was a long time in the making
The story of how one small business got started
BY PATRICIA A. MILLER
Staff Writer

A sampler of Mikaele Hayden's Creamoli creations. Hayden makes a number of premium ice cream flavors, then fills cannoli shells with the confections.

BRICK TOWNSHIP - The "Employee of the Month" sign on the wall of Mikaele Hayden's Creamoli store on Lanes Mills Road sums up the scope of her operations, at least for now. It features a photo of her mother, Lilian, who could have received that honor every month last summer. That's because Lilian was the only employee Hayden had on the payroll. "She worked every day last summer," Hayden said.

Hayden opened her almost one-woman business in April 2006. It was the culmination of years of planning.

The idea for Creamoli was born years ago, when Hayden, a former Staten Island, N.Y., resident, used to see Chipwich carts in Manhattan.

"I thought, 'I can do that,'" she said. "I love cannolis and I love ice cream. I wanted to do this since the late 1980s. Everyone likes to eat and I always wanted my own business."

PHOTOS BY ERIC SUCAR staff Mikaele Hayden makes one of her patented tricolored sorbets last week at her store "Creamoli" located at 12 Lanes Mills Road in Brick. Hayden is hoping to franchise the business she started.

So what's a Creamoli? It's a cannoli stuffed with premium ice cream that Hayden makes in her little purple and lavender store next to Parkway Pizza. Hayden starts with a "white base" of ice cream. Don't ask her what the ingredients are. She'd have to kill you if she told you.

Creamolis come in a variety of flavors - French vanilla, caramel, almond, chocolate almond, cannoli (the most popular flavor), cannoli chip, hazelnut and chocolate.

Once Hayden has prepared the ingredients, they go into a batch freezer until the product is the right consistency. The freezing process takes from half an hour to 45 minutes. Then she uses a pastry bag to stuff the ice cream into cannolis.

In between, she takes orders for parties and runs the store's take-out window.

"It's a lot of hard work," Hayden said as she held up both hands. "People think it's easy. It's not glamorous. I have no nails."

Her goal is to franchise her trademarked product, once the business starts to show a profit. But she's already come a long way since she first introduced Creamoli to the public at a Staten Island street fair in 2002.

Hayden, her husband, Ray, and twin sons left Staten Island and moved to Toms River five years ago, in part to escape the memories of Sept. 11, 2001.

Ray was a New York City fireman with Engine 9, Ladder 6 in Chinatown. He was on the 25th floor of the North Tower when they got the order to abandon the building. He managed to make it to street level, dove under a tow truck and survived.

Hayden toyed with the idea of hiring a manufacturer to make the products for her at first. She hired a chemist to formulate her recipe into one compatible with the manufacturer's equipment. But after two production runs, she decided working with a manufacturer was not for her.

"I was hand-stuffing cannolis and delivering them in coolers," she said. "I was totally burned out and very discouraged. I think everything happens for a reason. I decided I'm doing it myself."

So now she runs her dream out of a 200-square-foot store at 12 Lanes Mill Road.

This year she plans to open the store around 1 p.m. Sometimes their 10-year-old sons, Stephen and Christopher, give her a hand.

"I want them to have a work ethic," she said.

"The best of luck to Mommy and her new ice cream store" reads a plaque that features a silver cannoli and ice cream scoop. It's signed "The Guys."

Hayden also makes her own Creamoli cakes and a variety of fresh fruit sorbets. She holds "Friday Fever" from 4 to 6 p.m., where customers can buy four Creamolis for the price of three.

She also fills orders for private parties. The party orders, orders for cakes and "Big Creamoli" - a foot-long Creamoli cannoli stuffed with ice cream and minicannolis - require a week's notice. For more information, call (732) 458-4949 or visit www.Creamoli.com.

Creamoli is open Thursday through Sunday from 1 to 8 p.m.; Wednesday through Sunday after Memorial Day; then every day but Monday from 1 to 9:30 p.m. once school is out for the summer.

And if you're planning on paying a visit to the store while traveling, bring a cooler.

Hayden had customers who stopped by the store for a treat on their way to Long Beach Island last year.

"They asked me, 'Are these going to last us to Long Beach Island?' she said. "It was 90 degrees outside."