When Mark Berens started working in his father’s frozen custard shop in 1976, he hated it. Going straight from elementary school to work in the shop while his friends went home to play wasn’t ideal for a 12-year-old, and it didn’t help that his father never paid him.
But the frozen custard calling followed him into adulthood. Nearly 50 years later, he’s still behind the counter almost every day — and with plans to open a second location this summer.
Mark likes to tell the story of how his father, Don Berens, started the family business. Don was from Rochester, New York, and there were three things he always talked about when his hometown came up: Genesee beer, his beloved high school and Abbott’s Frozen Custard.
The elder Berens had moved to Atlanta to attend Georgia Tech and subsequently worked as an engineer on the Peachtree Plaza Hotel construction project. When the developer asked Don if he’d like to go to New York to work on another building, Don had no desire to leave Atlanta, Mark said. So he turned down the offer and took a stab at something entirely different — bringing frozen custard to Atlanta.
Credit: Olivia Wakim
Credit: Olivia Wakim
Don Berens cut his frozen custard teeth in 1976 as a franchisee of Abbott’s Frozen Custard at 5250 Buford Highway. But after a falling out with the owner, he tweaked the recipes and pivoted to Berens Old Fashioned Frozen Custard. It was a mom-and-pop business to its core. Mark, his two siblings, his grandmother and aunt all worked in the custard shop.
“The battle we fought back then was that Southerners (thought) that we were selling frozen pie filling,” Mark said.
Mark, who eats his product nearly every day, said the mix is similar to ice cream with the addition of egg yolks. And since it’s made with a real frozen custard machine, very little air is added — which results in a creamier and smoother dessert than regular ice cream.
“Most people are blown away by that because it’s so thick and dense,” he said.
Frozen custard also must be made fresh every few hours, so at Berens customers never taste anything more than a few hours old, Mark said.
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Don grew the Berens Frozen Custard line to several shops throughout the metro area, and over time Mark began to enjoy working in his father’s shop, especially when it became the hangout spot in his high school days (when he might have sneaked his friends a free scoop here and there).
Once Mark left home and married his wife, Debbie, he continued helping his dad out occasionally while running his own wallpaper business, but “I was always drawn back,” he said.
When Don retired in the late ’80s, he closed down the Berens locations but would still pop up at events to make enough money to fund his golfing passion, Mark said.
Don passed in 2005, and Mark was left with his dad’s frozen custard equipment.
“Your high school guidance counselor never says, ‘Well, you’re gonna grow up and be a frozen custard owner,’” Mark’s wife Debbie joked one June afternoon in the custard shop. “But I think it was important to just carry on (his) dad’s business.”
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
While working as a stay-at-home dad, Mark would bring frozen custard to events, and in 2010 when his two sons were old enough to take care of themselves — and when an ideal location opened on Highway 78 just a few blocks away from their house — Mark decided to take a leap and reopen Berens Frozen Custard.
His family was supportive of him taking that chance, no matter how “terrifying” it was, he said. While Debbie doesn’t work at Berens — her role is to stop by and chat with customers — she has always been supportive of Mark’s dream, down to the ice cream necklace dangling on her neck.
“It was a part of your life,” Debbie said to Mark during their interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Then when we got married, it became a part of our life.”
All those years as a stay-at-home dad meant Mark had built a network in the community as a baseball coach and the volunteer frozen custard server during school activities, so the customers started to trickle in.
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
During the first eight months, Mark was too afraid to leave the shop alone. He worked open to close every day. The first time he left was to go watch his son’s baseball game, he said, and he drove straight back to Berens after it was over. Now, they close for one week in January, which allows Mark to take a vacation without worry.
In 2020, he moved the shop to the Railyard development in downtown Grayson where Berens now resides. Opening in Grayson was one of their busiest days, he said. They retained their old customers and gained a new audience.
Over the years, he’s made changes to the menu — like adding snow cones for the dairy-free customers — and Mark and his team of high school employees brainstorm new concretes (vanilla custard blended with mix-ins and sauces) every so often.
They also make waffle cones and brownies. The latter are used in the decadent, bestselling brownie hot fudge concrete. And Mark bakes cookies each morning with dough from a local bakery that serve as the top and bottom for frozen custard sandwiches.
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Even at 61 years old, he jumps out of bed at 4:30 a.m. excited for a day of making custard, Mark said.
After decades behind the counter, Mark has earned celebrity status as the frozen custard man. When kids run up to him for a hug, “It’s just the best thing in the world,” he said.
In late July, Mark will open a second location in downtown Lawrenceville with business partner Stefan Niemczyk. They plan to franchise Berens Frozen Custard, with Niemczyk leading that charge while Mark continues to focus on the Grayson and Lawrenceville outposts.
Mark thinks Berens Frozen Custard has stuck around all these years because the creamy treat appeals to people of all ages, and Mark and his team of scoopers have a commitment to good service and quality custard.
“I love it, I can’t imagine retiring,” he said.
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
While he doesn’t use the same frozen custard machine that Don once did, Mark has kept his father’s custard legacy alive, and the menu still has the upside-down banana split that his father invented as a way to make the towering banana split easier to carry.
And some days, Mark said he’ll take a moment to stare at the photo beside the counter of his father smiling.
“I’ve joked ever since the beginning that Mark’s dad is right here on his shoulder,” Debbie said.
420 Grayson Parkway, Grayson. 770-709-6052, berenscustard.com.
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