Mom a la Mode

"My mother-in-law brought me to Pickles & Ice Cream when I was five months pregnant, and I essentially bought my whole wardrobe there," says Grantham, 30. "I had a really fun experience, and I knew I needed to bring Pickles & Ice Cream here."

She did, but opening the franchise came with a lot of challenges. For one, Grantham, who had been an administrative law judge and attorney specializing in criminal and international law, had no retail experience. "I had no idea what I was doing. It seemed like every day, I woke up to this huge hurdle, but I just overcame it," she says.

Grantham brought her mother in to help with setting up the store. "She didn't have any retail experience either, but we were blessed with good heads on our shoulders, and we just muddled through it," she says. Grantham's store made its debut in an open-air shopping center last October. She now has three employees.

Just as Grantham predicted, the store attracts grateful customers from all over Scottsdale. They appreciate the personalized attention just as much as the hip clothing. "People are already coming back with their babies. We have a bulletin board with pictures of moms and their newborns," Grantham says. "It's nice-they pop in to say 'Hey,' change their baby's diapers and go on their way."

This article was originally published in the August 2002 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Mom a la Mode.