Leatherby’s opens in Folsom. Fifth ice cream parlor in chain aims for a ‘Downtown Disney’ feel

Dave Leatherby Jr., 67, said he wanted the building to feel like a shop in the Downtown Disney District.

The newest location of Leatherby’s, a Sacramento-founded ice cream parlor, opened at 2455 Iron Point Road in Folsom to train employees on Monday. Standing beneath the store’s chandeliers and a new decorative ceiling, Leatherby said he drew the inspiration from the Disney parks in an attempt to add to the customer experience.

“Each creamery has gotten a little better, a little fancier, a little nicer, because we’ve learned,” he said. “This is our fifth and this is the nicest one. It looks a little bit like Downtown Disneyland with the fancy floors, the ceilings and the chandeliers and all that.”

The shop also has a custom-made bench in the foyer with an excerpt from “The Value of a Smile,” a poem Leatherby’s father, “Daddy Dave,” used to often recite.

“He wanted to make the world a better place,” Leatherby said. “He felt that you do that by giving of yourself. You make yourself a gift to other people. Ice cream is a byproduct. Food is a byproduct. He says, ‘We’re selling happiness.’”

Dave Leatherby Sr. died in March 2019 at the age of 81.

Any customers inside the building from Monday through Saturday are families of the new employees or invited by the owners. It will open to the public daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. beginning Memorial Day, according to the shop’s first co-owner without the Leatherby last name, Michael Cremins.

Cremins, 37, began working for the family business when he was 16 years old. He stopped for approximately six years to focus on a different career of banking and mortgage lending, Leatherby said. One day, he showed up at the ice cream’s doorstep.

“He goes, ‘I’ve done all these other things. I’ve been successful. But I enjoyed working at Leatherby’s. It’s a happy place,’” Leatherby said. “So, we hired him back.”

Cremins managed the Leatherby’s store on Antelope Road in Citrus Heights for eight years. Leatherby said Cremins was very instrumental in opening the Lincoln store and thought he should be rewarded with part ownership of the Folsom one.

“We tease him, sort of,” Leatherby said. “We say, ‘Michael, you’re adopted.’ It’s not even teasing. We compliment him.”

‘They’re so inspiring.’ Families go to work

Christina La Comb, 58, sat inside of the parlor on Monday and said she thought of ordering Connor’s chipotle chicken sandwich, priced on the menu at $14.49.

She said she would have to get ice cream after because her daughter, Keira, 17, scoops ice cream. This is Keira La Comb’s first job.

“(Keira) comes home and she’s talked about how they’re so inspiring,” La Comb said. “She was very inspired by their ethic about how you’re greeting people when they come in. You’re sharing yourself with them and making everybody happy. It’s about making people happy, and she was just really touched by that.”

Seated at one of the tables on Monday, marveling at the new location’s prestige, Sally Leatherby, 85, the matriarch of the family, said it will employ roughly seven of her 35 grandchildren and 45 great-grandchildren when they come home from college during the summer.

She said visiting one of the stores is a daily event, and “I have lunch with my family every day.”

With her sons and grandsons operating the shops, she said she no longer has to worry about the business aspect of things, but she still stays somewhat involved.

“I do the banking in the morning in the Arden store, not that they need me, but maybe I need that just to get up and get out,” she said.

Leatherby said he has 20 grandkids of his own and that opening and operating ice cream parlors “is a lot of work.”

If any more in the Sacramento area open, “that’ll be up to our kids,” he said.

“I think that at a certain point, I would like to back off. That may be soon,” Leatherby said. “Otherwise, I have to stay engaged. So, I’ll be a consultant to my children.”

This story was originally published May 26, 2023 at 9:48 AM.