NEW LEE'S SUMMIT STORE OPENS 9/29/05 !

For Immediate Release:
August 30, 2005

Custard’s Last Stand, with their original store located at 111 S. 291 highway will be opening another location in Lee’s Summit. The new store will be located at 308 SE 291 Highway next to Steak N Shake. This new location will feature one of the newest Custard’s Last Stand building designs. It will include a 50’s atmosphere along with a party room to hold many different events like team parties and birthday parties. Options will be available to have different types of parties such as a “Build Your Own Sundae” inside the party room. They will also unveil “Coney Island” which will bring Custard’s into the food line with many different types of hot dogs including Coney dogs and Chicago dogs and many others.

This new Custard’s Last Stand store in Lee’s Summit will be one of the largest ice creams stores in the Midwest offering comfortable indoor / outdoor seating for over 100 people. Ray Julo, president of Custard’s Last Stand, Inc. says “Lee’s Summit has deserved this store for many years. There are not many ice cream stores in the entire United States that have indoor seating, outdoor seating, drive-thru and walk-up service. When we opened in 1989 it was the Lee’s Summit residents who built our business to where it is today and we are happy to be able to bring this store back to Lee’s Summit. We are a hometown owned and operated business and love the Lee’s Summit area and want to continue our growth.”

Estimated opening date for the new location will be September 30th. Plans are for the original 291 store to remain open until the current lease expires or a suitable tenant can be found.

Custard’s Last Stand opened in Lee’s Summit Missouri in 1989 and specializes in serving frozen custard made fresh everyday along with gourmet flavored popcorn. Custard’s Last Stand has been voted best ice cream in the Kansas City area many times and most recently in 2005 by www.citysearch.com. There are six locations currently serving the Kansas City area including Lee’s Summit Missouri , Overland Park Kansas , Lenexa Kansas and Blue Springs, Missouri and Warrensburg, Missouri.

56 POINTS = 56% OFF!

K.C. CHIEFS SCORE 56 POINTS AGAINST ATLANTA!

October 26, 2004
Custard's Last Stand News Reporter

Yes, it was wild the last 2 days at all Custard's Last Stand locations. I have to be honest and tell you when the score was 49, we were not rooting for that last touchdown. Our discount is from the time the game ends until we close and from 2-6PM on the following Monday (unless it is a Monday night game). Our discount is only allowed during these periods and you must say "Chiefs & 810" to get it. Thousands of people enjoyed our products after this game at a 56% discount.

This is not to mention all the other great businesses that are offering you discounts. I had to go purchase my gift certificates from a few places like Smoke & Fire in Stanley, KS along with a Cheezteak sandwich at the Lee's Summit location. We hope you will try to support all of the members in the Custard's Last Stand Club in conjunction with 810WHB. It was apparent that many club members were doing the kind of business we were. It was reported some club member locations had lines of 100 people or an hour wait. We hope you will be patient with us when their discounts are this high. We all want to please our customers and we do the best we can. Our goal is to always give great products and great service but we have to make our employee schedules before the games even start.

One thing to remember is that we all still give the discount out no matter if the Chiefs win or lose. Home or away... it doesn't matter to us. Our Blue Springs location set an all time 15 year record for number of products sold in one day after the Chiefs game Sunday. We were borrowing parking from some of our neighboring businesses.

In 2003, Custard's Last Stand received the award for National Ice Cream Promotion of the Year from the National Ice Cream Retailers Association for this promotion. It was presented to us at the 70th annual convention in New Orleans. This is the third year for this promotion at it keeps getting bigger.

For more details on the promotion, click on the promotions button at the top of this page and choose Custard's Last Stand Club. GO CHIEFS!

The Lowdown

Custards Last Stand Scores A Touchdown With National Ice Cream Promotion of the Year Award!

Custard's Last Stand received the National Promotion of the Year Award from the National Ice Cream Retailers Association on November 15th at the NICRA convention held in New Orleans .

Lee’s Summit, Missouri ; November 19th, 2003
Custard’s Last Stand, Inc. headquartered in the Kansas City, Missouri area attended the 70th annual National Ice Cream Retailers Association Convention which was held in New Orleans November 12 -16th. Custard’s Last Stand received the National Ice Cream Promotion of the Year Award at this convention. This is the highest award given out to any ice cream store at the yearly convention. The NICRA convention is a gathering of ice cream retailers and manufacturers from all across the United States with the purpose of exchanging information and ideas. Accepting the award at the convention for Custard’s Last Stand, were owners Ray, Susan and Libby Julo. This is the first time any ice cream store in Missouri or Kansas has received this award from the National Ice Cream Retailers Association.

Their award winning promotion was the “Custard’s Last Stand Club” which was created in September of 2002 with Sports Radio Station WHB810. After each Kansas City Chiefs football game, Custard’s Last Stand and other retailers give a discount equal to the number of points the Chiefs scored. The promotion was very successful in 2002 as the Chiefs ended up with the number one scoring offense in football last year. The Custard’s Last Stand Club is currently going on during the 2003 season and is larger than ever with 36 different businesses and 114 locations offering the discounts equal to the number of points the Chiefs score. Details and information on the promotion can be found at www.custardslaststand.com.

Custard’s Last Stand opened in Lee’s Summit Missouri in 1989 and has been voted best ice cream in the Kansas City area many times. There are five locations currently serving the Kansas City area including Lee’s Summit Missouri , Overland Park Kansas , Lenexa Kansas and Blue Springs Missouri . The Lenexa Kansas store, owned by Dave and Tina VanderWaal is the first franchised location for Custard’s Last Stand.

Companies hitch marketing to Chiefs bandwagon

Kansas City Star Exclusive Reports
From the December 12, 2003 print edition
David Twiddy - Staff Writer

Like other Kansas City Chiefs fans, Ray Julo was disappointed in the team's 45-27 loss to the Denver Broncos on Dec. 7. It meant a slow day for his frozen custard shops.

Beginning last season, on every game day and next business day, Julo has given percentage discounts equal to the number of points the Chiefs score. Julo is an officer in the Lee's Summit-based Custard's Last Stand chain and owns two stores himself. After big games, such as last year's 49-0 drubbing of the Arizona Cardinals, people can be lined out the door. After losses, however, Julo said it can get a little lonely. "Everyone goes into hiding," he said, noting that he had about 50 people come in Dec. 8 asking for 27 percent off.

Still, Julo's promotion has proved so popular that 36 businesses with 114 area locations now participate. They provide Chiefs-fueled discounts on everything from sub sandwiches to golf bags to oil changes and even to private school enrollment fees at Englewood Christian Academy in Independence. Sports station WHB-AM 810 advertises the program and lists participants and deals on its Web site. It also delivers a choice demographic: 71 percent of listeners are 25 to 54 years old; 85 percent are men. Besides being a way to show support for the team, business owners said it's a novel approach to attracting customers who may not have known the businesses existed. "We get people who come in and say, 'I didn't even know that there was a spa here,'" said Linda Gonzales, co-owner of In Touch Spa in Liberty. "As we get closer to the holidays, it's going to get better." Gonzales joined the so-called Custard's Last Stand Club in mid-September after a friend heard about it on WHB. Gonzales discounts gift certificates and said the exposure has brought several repeat customers. Lanny Wagoner, general manager of Cort Furniture in Lenexa, said the business joined early in the 2002 season, hoping to unload overstocked furniture and items no longer fit for its core rental business.

After initially focusing the discount on selected dining sets, he opened it up to everything in the store. "Because of the big points being scored last year, we were able to get customers," Wagoner said, noting that even with discounts, he's making almost pure profit. "On Mondays, we typically do $1,500 in sales. During the two biggest sales (last year), we saw $16,000 and $8,000 to $10,000." The Chiefs lead the league in scoring, averaging almost 30 points a game, but there have been fewer 40-point-plus games this year, meaning Wagoner hasn't had the crowds. He said he's hopeful that the Dec. 14 game against the Detroit Lions will provide a boost. After all, the Lions rank 25th of 32 teams for points allowed, at 22.6 a game. "I think people are expecting the Chiefs to score a lot of points on Detroit, so I think people are saying, 'Let's see what happens before we go buy something,'" he said. Julo said that tying discounts to football scores is often a money-losing proposition. For example, he said he and a few other club members determined that during an eight-day period last season, they had discounted $400,000 in product. As for the benefit, he said it's difficult to calculate. October sales were 25 percent higher than last year. He doesn't know whether to credit the Chiefs going undefeated that month or the warmer weather. But he said he also knows that the promotion sticks with people: Customers began asking about the discounts in the summer.

Before beginning the promotion last year, he did research to see how badly he could get hurt. The NFL record for points scored in a game is 72 (set in 1966), and three years ago, the St. Louis Rams scored 57 points. "We weighed all of that and thought our potential benefits on this thing outweighed our potential risks," he said. "We're trying to increase our customer base, and we think we're doing that. During the game and after the game, they're thinking about their discount. You know you're getting into the public's mind, and, with any promotion you do, that's the payoff down the road." "We hope to carry this through to the Super Bowl," he said.