A family-owned ice cream shop is now churning the frozen dessert daily on the ground floor of Tycon Courthouse, the office building better known to locals as the “Toilet Bowl” building.
Terra Bechara, who lives in nearby Vienna with her husband and five kids, opened Terra’s Ice Cream, Coffee and Sweets at 2070 Chain Bridge Rd, Suite 180, in Tysons on Thursday, Aug. 8, overcoming months of permitting and construction hurdles.
Open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, the business hasn’t gotten a serious advertising push yet, with Bechara mostly just notifying other building tenants so far and posting about the opening on Facebook. Even so, the community reaction has been heartening.
“It’s been great. We’ve had really good response to things,” she told FFXnow. “I’m surprised that we’ve had a lot of repeat customers already, which is good, and…we’ve been selling out of [pastries] daily, which is great because I like to bake things fresh daily, and I don’t want things to go to waste.”
Ice cream has long been a family business for Bechara, who first entered the industry at 15 when her parents opened Yum Yum Ice Cream Cafe in Fairfax Towne Center.
Working at the shop, which sold ice cream and baked goods, Bechara says she learned valuable business and social skills. After graduating from high school, she attended George Mason University for a year before embracing her passion for cooking and baking and transferring to Johnson & Wales University’s renowed culinary school in Rhode Island.
There, she earned a degree in business management and pastry arts, but upon graduating, she worried her dual dreams of opening her own cafe and starting a family wouldn’t be compatible.
“This industry is very difficult to do that, so I said, ‘Okay, let me put that on hold my cafe, my dream to open up my own place,'” Bechara said. “I decided to work with my dad in insurance. I became an insurance broker.”
Bechara’s dream of a family came to fruition, and with her kids getting older, including a 15-year-old son who now helps out at Terra’s, she felt the time was right to pursue her culinary goal as well.
While she always hoped to stay close to home, Bechara says it was a fortunate turn of events that the retail space adjacent to Rodi’s Salon, which her husband has owned for nearly 20 years, became available when she was looking for possible locations.
In addition to making everything from scratch, down to the Oreos in a cookies ‘n cream ice cream that’s already a top-selling flavor, Terra’s prioritizes all-natural, gluten-free ingredients, often sourced from small businesses.
The ice cream, for instance, uses A2 milk and cream from Snowville Creamery in Ohio, and Bechara flavors and churns it on-site using a recipe she developed with the dairy supplier. She says she also gets a version of Nutella from a New York-based family business and tea from a local woman who makes organic tea.
“I’m very particular on ingredients and what’s in things, so I’m always reading labels and trying to find the cleanest options out there, teach my kids the same thing,” she said. “My whole goal here is to create items that are very simple, like ice cream is just milk cream, sugar and flavor. There should be no additives or artificial flavorings or color, so I try to keep things very, very natural.”
Terra’s serves 20 different ice cream flavors at a time, including two rotating sorbets and four non-dairy options made with an oat base. About four flavors will change with the season, so this fall could bring pumpkin and apple cinnamon.
The cookies, muffins, scones and other baked goods will generally stay consistent, though Bechara says she’s already gotten suggestions for different flavors. She hopes to expand the bakery items and add some savory concoctions in the future.
Terra’s journey into existence hit some bumps along the way, its planned early summer launch held up by various permitting, contractor and shipping delays, Bechara says. In fact, when FFXnow visited last Thursday (Aug. 15), the shop was still waiting to get its cold brew coffee machine.
However, Bechara is hopeful that everything will be smoothed out by this time in September.
“I’m planning to have a big grand opening in about a month or so once we have everything, all the kinks are out and everything is kind of finalized,” Bechara said.
