Pam Raphael and her husband, Butch, own AZ Pops, a gourmet popsicle business that is just over a year old and starting to see an increase in profits. Their unique popsicles, which are made in a shul kitchen, come in an array of crafty flavors, like cantaloupe-raspberry, cucumber-sesame and chocolate-banana.
But there are more flavors. A lot more. Some are fairly standard, like strawberry-banana, while others are completely ingenious and often a little weird. For example, peach-basil — who would’ve thought those two flavors go together?
With Pam and Butch’s own concoctions, plus suggestions from customers and ideas from their kids, there is never a shortage of flavor ideas. Some don’t always taste great on the first attempt and recipes have to be tweaked a couple times, but that is one of the beautiful things about popsicles — you can melt them down and try again, a technique that was quite useful during the opening phase of AZ Pops. They melted down at least 1,000 popsicles in the first few months, making sure everything was perfect.
And perfect they are. “We cater an enormous amount to people with food allergies, because we don’t use any preservatives, artificial flavoring or gluten. We can also make ones with no sugar on request,” Pam says.
It isn’t just the lack of bad ingredients that makes these popsicles popular, it’s what’s in them that makes them so special. Pam gets most of her produce from local farms and puts a lot of energy and love into creating a product she and her family are proud of. “My faith actually plays a huge role in my business right now, because I rent kitchen space from a shul,” Pam says. “I am marketing to the Jewish community too. Like, this weekend, I am catering a bar mitzvah at Temple Solel, and I will be at Temple Chai on Nov. 4 selling popsicles.”
Pam’s eldest son, Ayden, 13, is preparing for his own bar mitzvah. For him this means more than just going to his lessons at Beth El Synagogue in Phoenix, it means deciding which flavor of popsicles he will have at his party. Right now it looks like he’ll get his two favorites, passionfruit-lychee and coconut-chocolate, but he may invent a new flavor in the meantime just to make the treat on his big day even more special.
Any extra money the Raphaels make usually goes to their kids, for things like Ayden’s bar mitzvah, or sending the kids to Jewish camp in the summer. Butch’s full-time job with LSG Sky Chefs pays the bills, and Pam’s popsicle business takes care of the kids. “We don’t financially have the money other people do. Our retirement sends our kids to Jewish camp in the summer,” Pam says and laughs. “But my kids don’t know the difference. I would want to take them on trips, since we used to be such travelers, but the kids really don’t know the difference.”
Their three kids have grown up being a part of the family businesses, including the restaurants the Raphaels used to own in Atlanta, and now, AZ Pops. “Our family has an entrepreneurial spirit,” Pam says. “The kids help produce, bag, sell and come up with flavors. They are getting an education on small-business America, and they are really proud.”
For Pam, life has largely been about the challenge, even naming a chapter in her life “planes, trains and automobiles” — the time when she and Butch lived apart for two years. She lived here in Arizona while he was all the way across the country studying at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. “I used to drive up to Phoenix, my parents would drop me off at the airport, I would take a red-eye to New York, and then take a bus into the city — because I would have landed in Newark — and then a train up to Poughkeepsie,” Pam says.
While Butch was in New York, Pam continued plugging away at the University of Arizona to finish her two degrees. “I have a bachelor’s in Judaic studies and a bachelor’s in family studies, and I originally wanted to go into early childhood education, and was the director of Keshet preschool, which is part of the Atlanta Jewish community center when we returned from overseas,” Pam says. “I was 24, maybe 25, when we moved to Jerusalem. That sounds so young now,” she says and laughs. They hadn’t initially been trying to move to Israel, but ended up there after trying to move to several other countries. “It ended up being beshert.”
Butch got a job as a sous chef in Israel, helping to open the Hilton Jerusalem, which is now the David Citadel Hotel, right in front of the King David Gate in the old city. The Raphaels have many good memories from their time in Jerusalem, but Pam says the first to come to mind are those relating to the sanctity of Shabbat (even though the family is secular) and the food. “The shuk (open stall markets) and produce are amazing!”
After becoming pregnant with their first child, they decided to move from Jerusalem back to the U.S., in part for the insurance and to be closer to family. The journey continued from there. They welcomed two more children, three years apart. Shyna, their middle child, is now 10, and their youngest, Ezra, is 7. All three are integral parts of whatever business the Raphaels have their fingers in, meaning each venture really is a family business.
Ayden regularly helps sell popsicles at the many farmers markets they attend. The business now is more relaxed, though, than the restaurants they used to own in Atlanta, which were all-consuming enterprises. “You live there,” Pam says, emphasizing she would never again want to own another restaurant. She adds that people would joke about being able to go into the Raphaels’ restaurants in Atlanta to see her and her husband with babies on their backs, working all day, every day. She laughs as she remembers one time when Ayden and Shyna had to peel a 50-pound bag of carrots together in Atlanta.
Business is going well right now, but Pam wouldn’t complain if it grew even more. AZ Pops popsicles are available at Luci’s Healthy Marketplace on Bethany Home Road and at the following five farmers markets: Roadrunner Market, Old Town Scottsdale Market and the Central Market on Saturdays, Ahwatukee Market on Sundays and the ASU Tempe Market on Tuesdays. (Visit arizonafarmersmarket.com for hours of operation.) The business also caters and can fill special orders. To find out more, fisit azpops.com.
