Iorio’s Gelato announced at Trowbridge Lofts

EAST LANSING – When Nick Lemmer left East Lansing for the University of Michigan four years ago, he traded in his gelato stand at the Lansing City Market for a storefront in Ann Arbor.

Now, Iorio’s Gelato & Caffe is coming back home.

“I opened it up as a side project with my sister Mary,” Lemmer said. “But when I graduated in 2014, I thought, ‘I could do something with my big fancy degree or I could keep selling gelato.’”

Lemmer, 24, will be opening his second location in the Trowbridge Lofts apartment complex in mid-September near the corner of Trowbridge and Harrison roads. The store will occupy 1,700 square feet of space and serve 18 flavors of gelato, including cherry, turtle cheesecake and mango, along with Zingerman’s coffee.

“Coffee and gelato blend well together,” said Steve Mangigian, owner of Zingerman’s Coffee Company, a wholesale roaster part of ZIngerman’s mini-empire in Ann Arbor, which has worked with Iorio’s since 2011.

Iorio’s will offer a full brew program in the store that includes alternative brewing techniques such as the French press and pour-over, Mangigian said.

“(Lemmer) is incorporating third wave brewing techniques into gelato,” he said. “Not many places are doing that in East Lansing. For being so young, he’s got a sharp mind for business.”

Iorio was Lemmer’s grandmother’s maiden name. Every time his family visited her in New Jersey, they would always have Italian ice, which Lemmer would crave when he was back home.

So in 2004, he and his sister bought a pushcart and sold the dessert around the state at county fairs and concerts, eventually adding gelato. In 2006, they moved their pushcart into the Lansing City Market before taking the business to Ann Arbor. Mary, 27, now lives in San Francisco.

“Nick has taken the business to the next level,” Mary said, who now works as a consultant, but comes home often to remain active in Iorio’s. “It has done so well because our product is great and hard to find. Especially for people who’ve been to Italy, there isn’t a gelateria on every corner.”

Though Lemmer has a degree in social computing, he said he has no immediate desire to get a job in the field like his sister.

“When my friends came back for homecoming, they were so negative about working in the corporate world,” he said. “At Iorio’s, I don’t have a boss. It doesn’t sound exciting.”

Lemmer said he expects to have roughly 20 full-time and part-time employees once the store opens.

“I’m super excited about it,” he said. “East Lansing is a different beast than Ann Arbor – it’s a lot bigger.”

Contact Alexander Alusheff at (517) 388-5973 or aalusheff@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexalusheff.

On the web:

http://www.ioriosgelato.com/