As we celebrate summer and Disability Pride Month, few businesses embody both quite like Howdy Homemade Ice Cream in downtown Indianapolis.
First, Howdy helps Hoosiers beat the heat with cool treats. More importantly, it brightens the community by building a staff consisting mostly of teens and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“Our goal was not only to provide exceptional ice cream but also to build a vibrant community hub where everyone feels welcomed, celebrated and empowered,” said Howdy Indy co-owners Carmela Toler and Cindy Carter. “It’s all about giving people a chance to shine — one scoop, smile and personal connection at a time.”
Located on North New Jersey Street, Howdy Indy lights up downtown Indianapolis with its blue and pink sign and smiling employees. But the company’s mission to help people with disabilities shine in the summer sun actually started in balmy Dallas, Texas.
From Texas with Love
Howdy founder Tom Landis found the first seeds of inspiration for the ice cream shop in the number of Dallas citizens with disabilities looking for work in the city — as well as the disability advocacy of former Dallas Cowboys coach Gene Stallings, who had a son with Down syndrome.
However, the idea for Howdy really blossomed in 2015, when Landis saw a young man with Down syndrome rise to the occasion on a particularly busy night at Landis’s cheesesteak restaurant, Texadelphia. The sandwich shop was hosting a banquet for the Highland Park High School football team when Highland senior and Texadelphia bus boy Coleman Jones went above and beyond his duties.
“It was a real busy night, and Coleman just immediately jumped in and helped serve food,” Landis told the Today Show. “He was super-friendly. I called his mom up the next day and said, ‘Hey, I want to hire this guy. He has so much potential for leadership written all over him.’”
Coleman is now the vice president of Howdy Homemade.
As Coleman told Today Show hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager in 2020: “I was blessed to get this opportunity to not only be an employee for Tom but an asset for Howdy to blossom.”
With Coleman as one of his first employees, Landis sold all of his Texadelphia restaurants in 2015 and dove head first into Howdy, which now has 13 stores across the country. Howdy made its Midwest debut with the opening of the Indianapolis location in September of 2022.
A Scoop of Hoosier Hospitality
Like Landis, Howdy Indy co-owners Carmela Toler and Cindy Carter have a long history of helping people with disabilities. Lifelong friends since 1991, they respectively serve as CEO and COO of LEL Home Services, which provides home and community-based services for people with disabilities through the state’s Medicaid waiver program.
When Toler and Carter saw the Today Show segment highlighting Howdy, the ice cream company’s mission seemed like a natural extension of their own, so they applied to be franchise owners. They ended up scoring a virtual interview with Landis and getting the green light to open the Indianapolis store.
Since it opened, Howdy Indy has served Hoosiers of all ages along Mass Ave and the Cultural Trail as well as local baby showers, birthday parties, graduations and weddings. Earlier this summer, Howdy Indy partnered with Scotchy Jamaican Grill to release a line of Jamaican ice cream flavors whose proceeds will benefit the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
“Through our white-label partnership program, local restaurants and cafés without dessert menus can now serve high-quality, custom-flavored Howdy Homemade ice cream under their own branding, allowing us to proudly reach new audiences and broaden our community impact,” Toler and Carter said.
In the end, Howdy is all about the people behind the product. In the same way Landis beamed with pride over Coleman in the company’s infancy, Toler and Carter recently celebrated their employee John, who joined the shop upon its opening in 2022.
“When John started, he was enthusiastic but understandably shy and uncertain about customer interactions,” Toler and Carter said. “Over the past few years, John has flourished in extraordinary ways, evolving from a quiet newcomer to a confident and outgoing ambassador of our shop. Today, John warmly greets every guest by name, leads the team in creating memorable experiences for our visitors, and even trains new employees. His remarkable growth has not only positively impacted him but has profoundly inspired our entire team. At a recent team celebration, John was recognized for his dedication and outstanding growth, receiving heartfelt cheers and applause from everyone present. John’s journey beautifully illustrates the power of opportunity, inclusion and community support, highlighting exactly why we are so passionate about what we do here at Howdy Indy.”