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Ruby Scoops owner Rabia Kamara recently competed on and won the Food Network's "Ben & Jerry's: Clash of the Cones."
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The four-part series was filmed in May at the Ben & Jerry's factory grounds in Vermont.
Actor Kevin Bacon, hip-hop artist Ludacris, and the founders of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream are just a few of the people who have recently indulged in 32-year-old Rabia Kamara’s cool treats.
And while the co-owner of the small-batch North Side ice cream shop Ruby Scoops — which churns out everything from classic flavors to sorbet and vegan offerings — never thought she’d be serving such a star-studded lineup, she says she did feel confident when she opened an email promoting a forthcoming ice cream-centric competition that it was meant to be.
“I’ve done other competitions that aren’t in my wheelhouse, but this was clearly my game,” says Kamara, who previously appeared on the reality shows "Guy’s Grocery's Games" and "Bake It Like Buddy." “From the very beginning I was like, ‘I want to do this, because I’m perfect for this and I think I can take it home and I can win.' And it turns out I was right."
On Monday, Sept. 6, the Silver Spring, Maryland, native and Virginia Commonwealth University graduate took home the crown from the Food Network show “Ben & Jerry’s: Clash of the Cones” along with $20,000, the exact amount Ben & Jerry's founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield hoped to make in their first year of business.
Shot over a 10-day period in May at Ben & Jerry’s home base in Waterbury, Vermont, the miniseries joined six ice cream artisans from across the country to create flavors inspired by and capturing the essence of the featured celebrity that week.
During the first flavor challenge, actor Kevin Bacon declared Kamara's “Bacon’s Banana for Chocolate” to be the best ice cream he’s ever had. The following week, she snagged another W when she created “Strawberry Yum Yum,” a play on the Ludacris song “Blueberry Yum Yum,” blending strawberry cheesecake, ricotta, cream cheese, chocolate and peanut butter into a masterful concoction during an episode she declares as her favorite.
“[The winning flavors] are very much so up there for me in flavors I really enjoy, and that’s why I want to bring Ludacris to the shop and show him my ice cream because, not to toot my own horn, I really did it with that one [Strawberry Yum Yum],” she says with a laugh. “I’m trying to figure out how to get my ice cream to him.”
Baking since she was a little girl, Kamara worked in restaurants in Washington, D.C., and Maryland after college, starting Ruby Scoops as a passion project on the side. Wanting to chart her own path, she enrolled in culinary school and then found herself returning to Richmond, the city that helped ignite her entrepreneurial spark.
“This is the place that made me decide I wanted to go to culinary school and go down his path in my life, so it felt right to come back here and open up at least the first shop in the place that really inspired this change in my life,” she says.
More changes are on the horizon for Kamara. This fall, along with her boyfriend, Bakari Ruggiero, and husband-and-wife team Tiara and Kris Russell, she plans to open a frozen dessert shop in Jackson Ward at 317 N. Second St. Dubbed Suzy Sno, the sister concept to Ruby Scoops will serve New Orleans-style snowballs, a finer, fluffier version of shaved ice traditionally topped with condensed milk, marshmallow fluff, whipped cream and flavored syrups, which Kamara notes will be made with organic sugar.
"Kind of ward to ward, if you will,” Kamara says, referring to New Orleans' municipal divisions, adding that the shop is named after her grandmother and that menu items will pay homage to significant people in Jackson Ward's history.
This next project will bring Kamara closer to reaching her dream of forming a restaurant hospitality group with an umbrella of brands and concepts.
"We see a lot of white people doing it and not a lot of Black people doing it, especially here, and that’s my goal,” Kamara says, noting that watering holes are definitely on the vision board as well.
Operating Ruby Scoops, a Black-, woman- and queer-owned business, Kamara recognizes the importance of representation.
“I was in my 20s before I saw anyone like me doing what I wanted to do,” she says, mentioning the likes of chefs Carla Hall and Joy Crump. “When little girls come in the shop and see the mural of me and say, ‘Mommy, is that her?’ … the fact that I look like them and do this resonates with them in a way I hope inspires them to do whatever they want do, because I knew at 9 years old this is what I wanted to do.”
Currently, three of the flavors from Kamara’s “Clash of the Cones” competition are available in the shop. She says the response from the city has been overwhelming and uplifting.
"I knew it was a big deal for me, but I don’t think I realized how big of a deal it was for the city and how big a deal it is for everyone at home,” she says. “The whole city has taken on the aura of being really proud of me, and I appreciate that. I haven’t been back for very long, and this is the place I’m looking to craft my life, so it feels good that they’re happy to have me.”
