Tamara Keefe Opens Clementine's Franchise Door As Kansas City Parlors Near Launch

Clementine's Ice Cream is turning a founder-led St. Louis growth story into a formal franchise opportunity, with two Kansas City-area parlors due to open as the brand begins looking for operators across the Midwest and nearby markets. The October 1 announcement said the first new Kansas City market parlor is planned for Lenexa, Kansas in late October and the second for Kansas City, Missouri in November. For franchise watchers, the timing matters: Clementine's is not launching franchising from a cold start, but from a multi-state retail base, a production model and a founder story that already carries brand identity.

Founder and chief executive Tamara Keefe remains central to the pitch. Clementine's says Keefe founded the company in 2015 and built it around small-batch, chef-driven ice cream, including classic flavors, non-dairy options and alcohol-infused flavors available at selected locations. The company's own biography page says she has grown the business into a multi-state brand with parlors across the Midwest, nationwide shipping and a 25,000-square-foot production facility in North St. Louis. That gives the franchise announcement a stronger operating backbone than a simple concept launch.

The franchising page shows the kind of partner Clementine's wants. It describes the brand as a premium opportunity for operators who can combine hospitality, local community building and disciplined standards. It also lists $250,000 in available liquid capital, a $500,000 net-worth requirement, a $40,000 franchise fee, a 5 percent royalty and a 2 percent brand fund fee. Those details matter because they move the story from lifestyle appeal into the practical filters that determine who can actually enter the system.

Clementine's also says its centralized production model is part of the franchise case. For a premium ice cream brand, that can reduce some quality risks that come with scaling, because product consistency does not depend entirely on each shop making every batch from scratch. The trade-off is that franchise partners still have to deliver the retail experience: staffing, service pace, cleanliness, local marketing and the hospitality that turns an occasional treat into a community habit.

The brand reported its fifth consecutive appearance on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list and said it grew 48 percent over three years. Those figures are useful signals, but the more interesting franchise question is whether Clementine's can protect what made it distinctive as it starts recruiting outside operators. Keefe framed the expansion around thoughtful growth and partner fit, not racing for unit count. That is the right tension for a founder-led franchise system to acknowledge early. The Kansas City parlors will be the immediate proof point, while the franchise program will test whether a brand built on craft and personality can keep that feeling intact beyond its home base.