The owner of three Cold Stone Creamery locations in the Madison area filed for bankruptcy last week, causing the stores to close temporarily. After 72 hours, Cold Stone on State Street re-opened under the ownership of Cold Stone Corporate and though workers were confused and kept in the dark regarding the company's activities, things are finally getting back to normal.
One current Cold Stone worker, a UW-Madison junior who wished to remain anonymous, explained that she found the closing completely unexpected, aside from the fact that no new workers have been hired this year.
'When it happened I thought it was a joke because no one had said anything,' she said. 'There were no hints of it at all and I was just like, 'OK, well where did this come from''?
She said that she first received a letter dated Oct. 18 stating: 'Mad City Creamery, Inc. has closed for business. Consequently, your employment with us has been terminated.' Upon receiving the letter, the Creamery worker worried about finding a new job because she felt most businesses had already hired for the semester.
'I just wished they would have given us more heads up or more than two days notice that we were going to lose our jobs. I started thinking about money to pay for rent later in the year,' she said.
However, after three days of looking for a new job, she received a phone call from her manager, Tim, stating that he had convinced Cold Stone Corporate to re-open. She said Tim had persuaded Cold Stone Corporate to pay the workers for the time that they had worked after the owner filed for bankruptcy, even though legally the workers do not have to be paid. Although the paychecks from Cold Stone Corporate are being delayed and the workers are unaware of when they will receive them, many Creamery employees are confident they will be paid.
'My mom said to get another job, but I love working at Cold Stone. They're good about their money and I am not worried about it going bankrupt again,' said another current Creamery worker, a UW-Madison sophomore who also wished to remain anonymous.
One worker thought the bankruptcy could be a result of new competition on State Street, such as Ben and Jerry's, while the other attributed the two-year-old Cold Stone store's decreasing novelty as the reason for the business' trouble.
