Ten Years of Popsicles, Persnicketiness, and a Whole Lot of Girl Scouts
Judd Wiggins of Savannah Square Pops joined me for a conversation on the Eat It and Like It Podcast(embedded below give it a listen), and I’ll admit something up front: I hadn’t seen the guy in long, hot minute (aren’t they all?). Between his farmers market runs and my own chaos, we’d both just been busy people orbiting the same six-block radius of downtown Savannah without actually colliding. But he’s set up shop right down the street from where I record my podcast, so there was really no excuse. Ultimately, life happens…but it was great to catch up.
It may feel like 10 minutes ago, but it was actually ten years ago, when Judd and his business partner Mark packed it in on their previous professional lives — what he calls “the rat race of corporate life” — and decided to make popsicles for a living instead. When I asked if he ever imagined, back at the start, that he’d still be doing this a decade later on MLK, Jr. Boulevard in Downtown Savannah, his answer was blunt: “No, I had no idea.”
He followed that up with something I actually love, because it’s honest instead of cute: “Which is probably the reason we are making it to ten.” Translation — nobody who’s chasing a rosy fantasy survives year one in the food business in the historic district. You survive, largely, because you have no illusions left.
It was rough at first. Judd didn’t sugarcoat it. “It was a really tough start. At least the first year or two were really tough.” Then something shifted — the Girl Scouts found them. Not figuratively, either. Actual Girl Scout troops, visiting Savannah for the Juliette Gordon Low pilgrimage, started making Savannah Square Pops a stop on the itinerary. Judd told me a docent at the Low birthplace recently informed him that his shop is “one of the most talked about experiences for the Girl Scouts in Savannah.” He said it with the kind of disbelief that only comes from someone who started a business with zero business experience and just kept showing up. “It is unreal to us,” he said, “to have such an amazing group from all over the country” rally around a popsicle stand. If you want a lesson in how small local businesses survive in a tourist town, it’s this: find your people, and then never take them for granted.
Now, about those popsicles — because Judd is, by his own admission, “still very persnickety” about the product, and it shows.
The brand’s name comes from Savannah’s original 22 squares in the downtown district. In this case, it is also how many flavors they launched with. They’re up to twenty-five now. For their tenth anniversary they’re rolling out a peaches and cream flavor that’s “gonna have a unique build,” which he teased as basically “a popsicle inside of a popsicle” without giving away the full mechanics. My favorite detail, though, was the cranberry ginger snap cheesecake pop they do for the holidays — instead of the usual graham cracker crust, they stew down cranberries and mandarin oranges into a puree and swirl it through like a marbled cheesecake. That’s not popsicle-stand thinking. That’s pastry-chef thinking, applied to something that costs a few bucks and melts in fifteen minutes.
If these sound different, they should. They are exceptional.
That commitment to doing it the hard way is why, ten years in, Savannah Square Pops is finally eyeing broader distribution through food service providers, all while Judd still personally hand-delivers freezers with a battery generator strapped in his van because, in his words, he doesn’t “want other people to necessarily be the middleman.” That’s a man who would rather drive the popsicles himself than compromise on how they show up.
Now here’s the part you actually need on your calendar: Savannah Square Pops is throwing their tenth anniversary celebration on Thursday, September 10th, from 4:30 to 6:30 PM at the shop on MLK, Jr. Blvd. It is very much open to the public. There will be hors d’oeuvres, drinks, live piano, boiled peanuts, and — this is the important part — sample-size pops across ten different flavors, so you can actually taste your way through a decade of recipes instead of committing to just one.
Judd’s hoping the mayor stops by, along with family flying in from Alabama who apparently still haven’t fully processed that their relative moved to Savannah to make popsicles for a living.
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