Some 16 years back, Mrs Imran first tasted an ice-cream cone by Alamgir Ali at Main Market, Gulberg. Much has changed in the last decade and a half. But amid all the change, her fondness for the ice cream remains a constant. A grandmother now, she still comes to the same cone wala with her grandchildren who equally enjoy their grandmother’s favourite ice-cream.
For Ali, the fact that three generations love his ice-cream spells success. “I have earned my living this way. But more importantly, I have earned the respect and trust of tens of thousands of customers,” he says. Reminiscing about how it all started, Ali recalls how he had just passed the matriculation exam when he came to Lahore from Okara and started his small business. “Now I have employees to help me with the customers. I make a decent living. I manage to save around Rs150,000 a month after paying all the expenses,” Ali told The Express Tribune.
During the interview, he also kept dealing with customers. Some of them insisted that Ali personally made a cone for them.
“I have created a special flavour of my own and named it waffles. It took me quite some time to develop it. The name also has a story. One of my customers from the United States sent me a pack of cone-biscuits. The name on the pack was waffles. I liked the name and decided that any new flavour that I developed would be called waffles. For over a decade, the waffles cone has been my specialty. It has been something that no one else offers in Lahore,” says Ali.
Several celebrities are Ali’s regular customers. “Filmstar Shan is one. Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi’s grandsons come for the cone ice cream quite often. Several families of senior police officers are also regular customers,” Ali says. Asked if he ever received gifts or favours as marks of appreciation from the customers, Ali says, “I requested one of my customers who was a senior police officer and got two of my relatives recruited in the police department.”
“One of my customers has been coming to me for many years. She was a school girl when she started to buy the cone. Now she is settled in the US. Every time she visits Pakistan, she comes for the cone with her children. It gives me pleasure to serve my customers,” says Ali.
Even the best of chefs make mistakes and Ali has had his share of faux pas but he is flattered that his customers have not complained even when he has slipped up. “Once I forgot to add sugar to the ice cream. It was 60 liters of milk, eggs, cream and no sugar. Half of that was sold and not a single customer complained that there was no sugar in it. Then one of my employees told me that I had forgotten to add sugar. I was so grateful to my customers that none of them had complained about it,” says Ali.
He feels that the level of trust his customers place in him is because he has always given his customers his best. “I use the best milk, maintain standards and take care of cleanliness. The machines I use are imported from Italy and are of the best quality.”
Ali also offers cold coffee and juices. He has plans to expand his business and have more shops in various parts of the city. “But I will never leave this place which made me what I am today.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 4th, 2014.
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