Roll’d is a brand new ice cream joint now open on Marine Drive at Caligo Square, 38, Frankfort Place, Colombo 4, on the same shared lot as Caligo Futsal. As the name suggests, the outlet serves rolled ice cream which has gained popularity over the past few years for its live stations and the option of having some fun with customisable toppings.
Launched on 19 July, Roll’d – a start-up founded by Venoji Weerawardena and Deemantha Hewagamage – is the newest addition to the collective of street food-esque outlets at Caligo Square.
Although a newcomer to the market, Roll’d has an extensive menu with a number of chocolatey and fruity ice cream options to choose from and the prices are incredibly reasonable for a good amount of ice cream.
Speaking to Brunch, Founder Venoji Weerawardena shared how Roll’d came to be from being a shared interest between herself and her partner Deemantha: “He has experience working with rolled ice cream for about seven years now and he is an avid traveller. He has been to Malaysia many times, where he was able to pick up on and get inspired by what would work best if we were to start our own rolled ice cream place.”
Weerawardena shared that things had come together in what felt like a whirlwind: “Everything came together within the span of three months, from putting together the menu to finding this spot to have our outlet,” she said.
Commenting on their prime location on Marine Drive, she shared: “We got some good advice about this. Since we were a start-up, it was clear that we would have to take our product to the customer, so we had to be somewhere visible. Originally, the thought was to do a food truck, but after visiting the municipal council we found the logistics to be a bit too complex. I came across this lot by chance and spoke to the owner who also has an ice cream place on the same lot, but inside the café. Regardless, he was happy to have us on board and we are able to add variety to the space. We offer a very different experience with our rolled ice creams.”
Weerawardena shared that they had worked hard to perfect their ice cream base, essentially making it homemade artisan rolled ice cream and therefore something they were very confident about. Having tasted it ourselves, we can confirm that it is definitely delicious ice cream.
Speaking of the ice cream, Weerawardena shared an interesting observation, noting how the majority of people opted for chocolate flavours and if they ever went for fruity flavours, it was almost always strawberry. This is understandable considering how we were drawn to the chocolate flavours ourselves and didn’t even think about trying something different.
“We have some delicious combinations. There are a couple that my mom came up with – ‘almond and dates’ and ‘pani kaju and jaggery’ – which are actually really lovely,” she said. When you do drop by and if you’re a more adventurous foodie, perhaps you can give these flavours a try.
Weerawardena also shared some of the challenges they had faced in starting a new business entirely from scratch, noting that the first week had definitely been a learning experience. “We brought down two machines, but one of them had technical difficulties, so we had some delays in preparing orders for the first week. We faced some challenges in coping with the volume of orders. However, we have since figured things out and we have both machines running simultaneously,” she said, adding that they were now able to produce an ice cream within five to six minutes.
Something we noticed ourselves when we visited was that the Roll’d container is located next to another container that prepares hot food and therefore emits a lot of smoke. Commenting on this, Weerawardena said that it was a concern they wished to address moving forward.
“We have a full glass covering which we implemented for hygiene purposes. However, we aren’t able to open up our cashier outlet because of the smoke and the heat being emitted from the neighbouring container. The heat will affect our employees. At present, they are able to take shifts to make things comfortable and effective, but the manager of the lot is willing to hear us out and I am sure we will figure something out,” she said.
Despite the challenges, Weerawardena shared that she was incredibly optimistic about her new venture. While she is a new player to the game as a young entrepreneur, she expressed hope that she would be able to provide a good service to her customers.
Info box
Roll’d is open from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. on weekdays and until 1 a.m. on weekends