Louie Keen, fresh off his successful bid to make the Guinness Book of World Records, recently was featured in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch because of the success and growth of his Uranus Fudge Factory complex off Route 66 near St. Robert, Missouri.
The whole story is worth reading, but a few highlights stand out:
— Keen, who acknowledged he has the mentality of a smart-aleck eighth-grader, said he started Uranus Fudge Factory because he was frustrated with the slow construction progress of an outdoors outpost in 2015.
— Even before he sold one piece of fudge, people streamed in from Route 66 and Interstate 44 to buy Uranus Fudge Factory T-shirts. By the time the fudge shop finally opened, it sold 1,200 pounds of product its first month. Keen said he expects Uranus Fudge Factory to greet 250,000 visitors a year. “This thing has blown up way more than I ever expected,” he said.
— Despite the gimmicky name, Uranus Fudge Factory is a serious affair. It boasts a chocolatier license and 18 flavors of fudge, plus jams, jellies, snacks and Ozarks souvenirs.
— Beth Wiles of the Pulaski County Tourism bureau admits she doesn’t recommend Uranus Fudge Factory to everyone and tries to gauge their sense of humor first. But she acknowledged Keen “is a great marketer.”
— Since Uranus Fudge Factory opened, Keen has opened Mission Outpost Outdoor outfitters, shooting and archery ranges, a food-truck park and the Axehole, where one can throw axes at targets competitively like darts. He’s added dinosaur statues and is looking for a stuffed two-headed goat. He also plans to open a Dr. Who-themed escape room, a petting zoo, a brewery and a wedding chapel.
— Keen, who grew up on a farm in southwest Missouri, said road trips and visits to tourist traps, particularly The Rock Shop, made a big impact on him. It owes a lot to Arizona’s The Thing? and other goofy and gimmicky roadside attractions.
— If anyone acts offended about the fudge factory’s name, Keen and his employees simply ask whether he or she has anything against the planet.
— Keen said he originally opened a strip club because he wanted a place where he could smoke and drink at work. But he learned the latter wasn’t conducive to running a business. He still has the strip club, but it opens at night, long after many Uranus tourists have left. He strives to make his complex family-friendly during the day. So much is going on at Uranus, the strip club almost is an afterthought.
(Image of Uranus, Missouri, by J. Stephen Conn via Flickr)
No more gimmicky than NASA calling its space projects Mercury and Saturn…….. And we are talking about fudge……
His marketing ploy worked. The 8th grader in me just had to click into this story.
Now let me, as a non-American, guess: 8th grade is when you were 13 years old? And we know what happened to Apollo 13……
Visiting Uranus was one of the highlights of my road trip!