Big Spoon Creamery

As Co-Owner and Founder of Big Spoon Creamery, Geri-Martha uses her 16 years of pastry experience and passion for people to create world-class artisanal ice cream and offer unparalleled hospitality. After growing up in North Alabama, Geri-Martha graduated from the University of Alabama in 2007 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Entrepreneurship. Soon after, she began her career as a pastry chef, eventually working her way up to Executive Pastry Chef at Dodiyo’s in Homewood, AL. In 2010, she moved to New York City to expand on her pastry expertise, working under award-winning pastry chefs like Johnny Iuzzini, Dominique Ansel and Michael Laskonis. When she returned to Birmingham, she applied her learnings in her role as pastry chef at Bottega, an Italian-influenced concept from James Beard Award Winning Chef Frank Stitt. It was while working at Bottega that Geri-Martha met her now husband, Ryan. As the couple settled into their marriage, they found themselves craving more from their careers. After much brainstorming, they began to dip their toes into artisanal ice cream, starting with a small pop-up in their driveway. From there, they strategically built their business, evolving it from a pop-up ice cream cart to their three brick-and-mortar locations today. In her role, Geri-Martha applies her extensive pastry and dessert background to develop Big Spoon’s artisanal handmade ice cream and lead her back-of-house team. Through her leadership, the team creates a rotating seasonal menu of 12 flavors that celebrate high-quality, local ingredients. As Big Spoon continues to grow, Geri-Martha is dedicated to keeping its ice cream handmade, which includes creating each flavor’s ingredients in-house. This includes baking the cakes that are deconstructed in flavors like “The DeCarlo,” and cooking gluten-free graham crumbs for their vegan “Beach Bonfire” flavor.