Now just a few weeks after their son turned 1, the shop near the intersection of Palo Verde Avenue and Atherton Street has seen a steady increase in sales.
But it didn’t come without plenty of doubt and late nights, Bermudez said.
For the first two months after opening in March, he would work until 3 or 4 in the morning making new ice cream flavors, Bermudez said.
The shop currently boasts 15 ice cream flavors, all made from scratch by Bermudez using custard as a base ingredient.
Frozen custard is a richer type of ice cream typically made with egg yolks, along with cream and sweetener. It’s more unique to Californians, but popular on the East Coast.
A $13.50 flight or a $6 split scoop is the best way for first timers to experience the array of flavors at Seaside Creamery.
The latest unique flavors include matcha horchata, lemon lavender, Vietnamese coffee, “fluffernutter” (peanut butter, marshmallow and Nutter Butter crumbles) and carnival crunch (with Circus Animal Cookies crumbled inside).
Bermudez learned about custard during his 19-year career with King’s Seafood Company, headquartered in Costa Mesa.
After meeting on an online dating app, he introduced the Long Beach-native Macedo to custard and their sights were set.
The couple developed the business plan in 2021 as part of Macedo’s MBA project at University of California Irvine.
As part of the project, they developed samples and gave them out along with potential competitors’ ice cream flavors.
“After that, that itch to open something wouldn’t go away,” Bermudez said.
Now, Seaside Creamery has five employees – all CSULB students – who walk over from the campus to work.
“The community is different, everybody is supportive, everybody loves local, everybody stays in the area,” Bermudez said. “That’s why we were like ‘if we’re going to open a business it’s going to be in Long Beach.’”
Bermudez runs the day-to-day operations at the shop, while Macedo juggles the big picture items along with her day job working as a program lead on pipeline compliance for the California Resources Corporation.
She also reassured Bermudez that everything was going to work out.
“She’s been the most supportive with anything I do,” Bermudez said. “When we opened I was so in my head about everything.”
He said one of his biggest fears was that no one would like the flavors he developed from scratch.
Their latest flavor of the month, a collaboration with the popular Retro Row coffee shop CoffeeDrunk, is flying off the shelves.
Bermudez experimented with several ways to emulate the Instigator drink that is popular at CoffeeDrunk, eventually settling on cracking the coffee beans and letting them soak for 48 hours in custard to achieve the flavor.
Soon CoffeeDrunk will be serving that flavor in “affogatos” out of their shop on Atlantic Avenue. An affogato is an Italian dessert typically made with a scoop of vanilla gelato or ice cream topped with hot espresso.
Also coming soon for Seaside creamery are a catering cart and stuffed conchas (a Mexican sweet bread).
Bermudez is hoping to debut conchas for fall, but finding the right panadería to supply conchas that are durable enough to be stuffed with ice cream has been a challenge.
Along with chasing new ventures, the couple are enjoying the flexibility of owning their own business.
The shop has a later opening time Monday through Thursday to ensure one of the parents is always with their son. That wasn’t an option with Bermudez’s previous career in the restaurant industry.
“We purposely open at 2 in the afternoon, not because of business, just because I want to spend that time with the baby,” he said.
Seaside Creamery, 1785 Palo Verde Ave., is open from 2 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and noon to 9 p.m. Friday through Sunday.