“I was looking for a business that was closer to home,” says Robert Park of Northville. He used to have a beauty-supply business in Detroit, but in July, he bought Ann Arbor’s only Baskin Robbins franchise, in the West Stadium Shopping Center. He was surprised to find this was the only BR in town–there are “about 7,500 around the world–Japan, Korea, Singapore.”
Park, from Korea, looks younger than his fifty-some years. “I’ll tell you why–it’s because I’m not a thin person! Some people get Botox to look like this. I won’t need it.”
BR’s subtitle is “31 Flavors,” and people do tend to come in and count them. Park had thirty the day we were there, but he explains that BR never intended it to mean stores carried thirty-one flavors at the same time. What it means is that with all the seasonal flavors rotating in and out, a person can buy ice cream every day for thirty-one days and never eat the same flavor twice. In September, he had just brought in Quarterback Crunch (vanilla with bits of rice crispies, chocolate, and caramel). “Pretty soon, we’ll be getting Halloween flavors.” His own current favorite is a BR classic, Jamoca–its trademarked name for coffee.
Baskin Robbins, 1952 W. Stadium (West Stadium Shopping Center), 332-3493. Daily 11 a.m.-9 p.m. baskinrobbins.com
