Dana Edwards Manatos’ great-grandparents Charlie and Orania Sarandou immigrated from Greece in 1914 not knowing English. They found themselves in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood. “The only thing they knew how to do was make candies on the street corner, and they started doing that for a living,” Manatos says.
The Pittsburgh-based business was called Keystone Candies, serving as a soda fountain and chocolate shop downstairs and as the Sarandou’s living quarters upstairs. Now, 110 years later, the legacy is carried on by Manatos under the name Milkshake Factory, which still uses the same recipes.
For Manatos, the child-like dream of growing up in a candy and ice cream store was the reality. As an elementary schooler, she adds, many school field trips included a tour of the Edwards family chocolate factory.
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Seeing her parents work at the chocolate and ice cream shop, Manatos says, “It was always something I wanted to be involved in. I love people and I love working with people, love the retail aspect of it, and the manufacturing, and all these different aspects that brought all these people together.”
Spending so much time in the store as a child, Manatos says she grew up “understanding how to manage and how to take care of your team and how to take care of people.”
Over the years, the shop was renovated and menu items were added. While Manatos was in college, her mom ran the shop. Manatos, a business major, wanted to find a way to make the family business gain more year-round sales. In 2003, she created the concept of Milkshake Factory, starting with an overwhelming 55 different flavors.
After graduating from college, she took a job in the White House’s Office of Presidential Advance during the George W. Bush administration. While President Joe Biden is surely vocal about his love for ice cream, Manatos attests, “It’s much sweeter to be on this side of the fence than in politics these days.”
After Manatos and her brothers left the White House, they rejoined their chocolate business, and started selling their chocolates in stores, including several Dean & DeLuca and Saks Fifth Avenue storefronts nearby.
A meeting was arranged with a Costco buyer in 2015, where the family pitched a chocolate caramel pretzel snack, using their great-grandfather’s caramel recipe. Upon their next meeting, “[The Costco buyer] tasted the samples and she got up and left the room,” Manatos recounts. “Well, she came back, and we were trying to get into the three Pittsburgh [Costco] clubs, and she says, on the spot, ‘You were approved for all 81 clubs in the Northeast.’”
The change from a small, family-run, regional chocolate business was huge for sales, but also for the cherished recipes of her ancestors. The home business was taking off, with their chocolate products soon to be sold in all Costco stores (nationally and internationally), major grocery store chains, and convenience stores across North America. At the same time, she says, “The Milkshake Factory was gaining this cult-like following, this place to be when you come to Pittsburgh.”
With the chocolate business continuing to sell in global markets, Milkshake Factory opened its second location in PNC Bank’s global headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh in 2016. “We didn’t announce it, we didn’t talk about it,” Manatos says, “we took the paper off the window and quietly unlocked the door, and there was a line around the block within an hour. It was just something people were excited about.”
The next step was to open six new stores in the suburbs and on college campuses in 2018 to see if the boom could continue: “Every single one was successful. That was really eye-opening about what we were doing,” she says. “It was really exciting to see how the community and the people in each community responded to the Milkshake Factory, which was just chocolate and ice cream. But it was more about an experience, about being a part of the community, and about hospitality than just waiting on customers.”
The expansion continued after the COVID pandemic, with two more locations opening near Pittsburgh. At this point, Manatos realized she had created a great concept for franchising, saying, “We wanted to be part of a community, and what better way to do that than have someone from the community running and operating that store and that location.”
Around 2021, Milkshake Factory brought on John Rotche and Franworth to help execute its franchise strategy. Currently, the brand has 14 currently in operation (11 in Pittsburgh alone), with 116 franchises sold. Its first non-Pittsburgh location opened in June in Salt Lake City. Manatos states, “We could have probably awarded two or three times as many franchises as we did, but we don’t, because you really have to be the right partner for our business.”
“We’re a hospitality-focused business, right behind that in number two is our products,” Manatos says. “We’re fourth-generation chocolatiers. That is who we are. That is ingrained in us. We were raised in the chocolate factory, understanding recipes and development and what that meant, and we are product people first, and that is something we will never get away from.”
The brand has been “product-focused” since 1914, she continues. “If our name is Milkshake Factory, then it better be the best milkshake that you have. The attention to detail that we take to actually make this milkshake, people would be blown away.” The ice cream blend (which is, of course, a family recipe) is made in-house each morning, and is layered with housemade syrups, sauces, and purees.
“The chocolate shop that sold ice cream became known as the ice cream shop that sold chocolate,” Manatos says. In the freezing cold Pittsburgh winters, customers still leave with milkshakes in their hands.
