Our Founding
Ice Cream Changed Her Life. Twice.
The Clementine's Story
Clementine's Ice Cream did not begin with perfect parlors or premium ingredients. It started with longing—a little girl on the outside, watching others gather around something simple but deeply meaningful.
Growing up in a large Irish-Italian household, Tamara Keefe knew what it meant to go without. Her family could not afford the classic Sunday ice cream stop that so many families enjoyed after church. She watched others linger and laugh over cones and sprinkles, a ritual that felt warm, magical, and just out of reach. That feeling of exclusion left a mark she never forgot.
Everything changed the day her mother found a two-dollar hand-crank ice cream maker at a garage sale. Suddenly, Sundays in the Keefe home became ice cream days. The kitchen turned into a celebration. One neighbor brought the cream, another got the sugar, and together they made something sweet, shared, and full of joy. In those humble scoops, Tamara discovered more than flavor. She found belonging. Ice cream transformed strangers into friends and loneliness into connection.
Years later, Tamara built a wildly successful corporate career, eventually leading a seventy-million-dollar division of a Fortune 500 consumer goods company. On paper, she had everything. In reality, the nonstop travel, seventy-hour workweeks, and constant grind left her feeling untethered from the sense of purpose and community she once knew in that crowded family kitchen.
Then came the second turning point.
In 2014, Tamara was living in St. Louis, a city she had fallen in love with for its neighborhoods, its people, and its soul. She realized it was time to make a bold move. She walked away from the corporate ladder, cashed out her 401(k), and invested her life savings into a dream: an ice cream company built on connection, craft, and joy.
Clementine's was born.
Tamara did not just open an ice cream shop. She built one of the few FDA-certified microcreameries in the country, committed to doing things the hard way. Every batch is produced in small quantities using all-natural dairy from local family farms, time-intensive techniques, and bold flavors crafted with intention and care.
She did not stop there. By partnering with food scientists and chemists, Tamara helped develop a proprietary process for freezing alcohol directly into ice cream. This innovation launched Clementine's now iconic Naughty line, earning national attention and a fiercely loyal following.
Since then, Clementine's has grown into a brand beloved across the Midwest and beyond. Today, the company operates multiple retail locations in Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, and Arkansas, ships ice cream nationwide, and offers a robust catering program for weddings, parties, and special events.
Along the way, Tamara has earned national recognition as an entrepreneur and innovator. She is a Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses alum, a Tory Burch Fellow, a James Beard Fellow, a Civic Pride board member, and the Chair of MyEO, the global Entrepreneurs' Organization.
But at its core, Clementine's has always been about the same thing that changed Tamara's life as a child: Ice cream as a catalyst for joy, connection, and belonging.
We are not just serving scoops. We are serving love, one handcrafted scoop at a time.