Keishia Deverney has spent three decades taking care of people as a registered nurse. After the death of her son, Devin Esapdron, in 2019, she began running the business he started, Element Beverage Company. Intrigued by running a business, she started her own, Etalian Happy Ice. She brings her fruit-flavored Italian ice and ice cream to festivals, local hospitals and universities and private events. Etalian Happy Ice will be a vendor in Spanish Plaza during French Quarter Festival. For more information, visit etalianhappyice.com or frenchquarterfest.org.
Gambit: Why did you start an Italian ice company?
Keishia Deverney: It’s a sad beginning but a happy ending. I have been a registered nurse all my life. I actually started entrepreneurship with the loss of my son. My son was the owner and creator of Element Beverage Company. My son was tragically killed five years ago in Audubon Park. So his daddy and I for a brief moment took over the lemonade business.
I have always eaten Italian ice. I grew up on snowballs. But I used to visit Angelo Brocato’s. I love the Italian ice there. If I didn’t go to the shop on Carrollton, I’d get it at the store. Then I got my inspiration from a guy in California and thought I could do something creative.
One day I was online and scrolling on YouTube and ran across a guy who brought the Italian ice concept from Philadelphia to California, and he got a big contract with Disney and has all kinds of stores. I was like, I can do that. I was like, why am I not in business with something I enjoy eating? Italian ice was comforting to me after the loss of my son.
So I went to Florida and found the company that makes the batch machines. I went to their class to learn how to make the ice, and I invested in the batch machine.
We have a warehouse in Belle Chasse where we make the ice. I started figuring out what were the most sought-after flavors. It’s a lot of trial and error. Our most popular flavors are mango, strawberry, pina colada and, believe it or not, blue raspberry. The color is so beautiful. It’s like ocean water. I guess that’s what attracts people. And watermelon is popular.
I launched at the Zulu Lundi Gras (festival). It was like a sold-out show. After that, a lot of festivals started requesting the ice at their festivals. I started doing a lot of events around here and in Baton Rouge. I am going to the Blues Festival in Baton Rouge.
We did Mardi Gras (this year). We stationed at St. Charles and St. Mary. We were at a fixed location for the whole season. We did gumbo and grilled cheese. That was a hot seller. We had jerk chicken nachos and the ice and the lemonade. We did every parade that was on St. Charles. It’s a small company, but it’s growing. We move around a lot.
We will be at the Black Pride Festival in June. We do the Essence Festival. And we’ll do Gretna Fest in fall, and the zydeco festival in November.
The difference between the typical supermarket rotisserie chicken and Here Today Rotisserie is beyond night and day.
Gambit: What do you serve at the different events?
Deverney: It was growing fast, and I wanted to be accessible to my customers, so we decided to buy the Etalian Ice trailer. We launched the trailer in 2023 for Mardi Gras parades. We do Italian ice and a lot of grab-and-go foods. We do catering at hospitals and universities around the city. We’re mobile for a lot of outdoor events.
Making my own flavors gave me the opportunity to experiment with different fruits. So we came up with a lot of creative flavors. We have salted caramel. We have iced cappuccino. We can mix different flavors together, like pina colada, mango and strawberry together. We have what we call a Spiderman, which mixes the blue raspberry and watermelon together. The kids love cotton candy. We also do some ice cream flavors. It’s a hit at the hospital where I work. We came up with a homemade vanilla ice cream that’s a big hit right now.
People have an option of different toppings. Some people like condensed milk poured on top. We have sour apple which is popular. We do caramel on top of that. When we do iced coffee, that goes well with the condensed milk or creamer on that. We have some creative variations.
(Italian ice) does contain sugar, but I am working on non-sugar flavors. We have a lot of diabetics in the city who can’t eat sugar. But if you’re lactose intolerant, which a lot of people are, it doesn’t contain dairy at all. There is no dairy in the Italian ice. There are cream flavors of ice cream. And the condensed milk is an option.
When we do catering, sometimes they just want Italian ice, and sometimes they want food. Some of the food that we do are jerk chicken nachos, seafood nachos, seafood gumbo, sliders. We may do fried chicken wings and fries or shrimp pasta. Twice a month, we go to different hospitals and do different specials. We’ll have the Italian ice, but we’ll have a food item for lunchtime, and we’ll switch it up with different options.
Gambit: What will you serve at French Quarter Festival?
Deverney: At French Quarter Festival, we’re just doing Italian ice. All of my flavors have funny names. There is Kiss My Strawberry. The mango is It Takes Two to Mango. The pina colada is Oh My God Pina Colada. The blue raspberry is Blew My Mind. The watermelon is Oh My God Watermelon Blast. I try to make it fun, so when customers come up, they laugh at the names.