Hansen's Sno-Bliz

Hours update

2011-04-07T18:16:00.001-05:00

We are now open 1-7pm Tuesday-Sunday.

Hansen's Now Open for the Season

2011-03-12T08:36:00.001-06:00

Hansen's is now open for the 2011 season.

The current hours are Thursday-Sunday 1-7pm. We will be expanding our hours in April.

Hansen's Sno-Bliz to the rescue with true Sno-Bliz Aid!

2010-07-14T18:08:00.001-05:00

The debacle in the gulf, and an enduring sense of helplessness, has inspired Hansen's owner Ashley to create a new bliz to help save the marsh and swamps of Louisiana's vanishing coast. At Hansen's, we desperately want to help and do something meaningful, New Orleans-style.

Come join us in our effort by sipping and slurping our new Swampitoulas Sno-Blizzes and Sodas. These will be served in a special biodegradable cup, designed by local artist Caesar Meadows. Cups are the 16oz size and will cost $5. All proceeds will benefit BTNEP, Barataria Terrebonne National Estuary Program.

Try one of our new flavors, only available in the Sip-A-Swampitoulas cups:
The Swampitoulas: verdant vanilla (it's green!)
Brown Pelican: a frothy root beer cream
LimeAid: a tart lime.

You can always get your favorite Hansen's homemade flavor instead.

Ashley is also bringing back the Sno-Bliz Soda just for the Sip-A-Swampitoulas cup. By adding soda water your sno-bliz is turned into a delicious slushy concoction.

Help save our swamps and air-condition your tummy at Hansen's Sno-Bliz. Available now.

Introducing Four New Flavors

2010-06-16T14:30:00.002-05:00

Ashley has created four new flavors: Cardamom, Vanilla Bean, Satsuma (Tart), and Cream of Chocolate Mint. All of these flavors, as well as Limeade, Lemonade, and Cream of Chocolate, are all natural. So head by Hansen's and try them out today.

Opening April 6!

2010-03-22T18:26:00.001-05:00

Hansen's will be opening for the 2010 season on Tuesday April 6!

The hours will be Tuesday-Sunday 1-7pm.

Announcing the next generation of Hansens

2009-11-12T21:43:00.001-06:00

It is my pleasure to announce that today we welcome the next generation of Hansen into the world. Avery Allison Springgate was born this morning to Ashley Hansen Springgate. Both mother and baby are doing well. Ashley told me that she is a beautiful baby and promised to send pictures and more information as soon as she can.

-Allison (Hansen's Web Master)

National attention

2009-08-01T20:09:00.001-05:00

In the past week, Hansen's has been in 3 major newspapers / magazines.

First, Hansen's was listed as the New Orleans location in USA Today's "10 great places to eat regionally, eat well."

The "eat + run" section of August issue of Every Day with Rachel Ray magazine, focused on shaved ice. Hansen's was one of four in the country that were listed.

Finally, the Los Angeles Times author Kathy Price-Robinson did "A search for New Orleans' best snowball". In my opinion, she wrote one of the most lovely descriptions of what it is like to visit Hansen's:

"As I watch the creation of my snowball, I feel as though I'm in Ashley's kitchen. She layers the snow and syrup, one after another, snow then syrup, snow then syrup, in a leisurely manner. She isn't so much cycling through the customers as she is honoring her grandparents. What that means, though, is slow service... . [The] wedding cake does not disappoint. It tastes like cake and frosting in a cup and the snow is soft, light and irresistible. It could well be the finest human-made snow on the planet. It's perfect, really."

Roadfood at Hansen's

2009-05-30T19:57:00.001-05:00

Last month the Louisiana Roadfood Festival tour stopped by Hansen's for some snoballs on their way out to the bayou.

This is what Bruce Bilmes and Sue Boyle had to say about it on the Roadfood Digest blog:

This is New Orleans, good people, so Stephen added a Roadfood lagniappe to the trip: on the way, the buses stopped at Hansen's Sno-Bliz! ... There were three flavors available for Roadfooders: Satsuma, Strawberry (?), and Nectar. Did we hear somebody say that Nectar was some sort of citrus/vanilla combo? Satsuma was a tart orange flavor that Sue and Bruce tried and found extremely refreshing. The others were said to be sweeter. You could have had yours with some sweetened condensed milk on top too, if you wished. We wished!

Kiki Maraschino at Here, Eat This:

At Sno Bliz they layer ice and syrup to make sure the ice is fully saturated. When I asked the difference between a snowball and a snow bliz, they said, "well, it is our brand name." They also have a flavor called "bliz" that most people liken to tart strawberry. I love that they have a size called "baby duper".

Other posts about the stop can be found at Eating in Translation and The Jetsetting Fool Cooks (and Eats!).

Hansen's Featured on AG Minute

2009-05-23T13:18:00.001-05:00

TWILA TV's Lauren Thom explores the history of an iconic icy New Orleans treat on the Louisiana Farm Bureau's AG Minute.

Times-Picayune article

2009-05-18T19:09:00.001-05:00

The Times-Picayune ran an article earlier this month about how during the winter months Ernest Hansen's machine got a much needed overhaul. Now it shines like new and is ready to make snoballs for you.

Hours change

2009-03-29T11:45:00.001-05:00

Until the summer the hours are going to be Tuesday-Sunday 1pm-7pm. Then we will go to the full set of hours that were posted the other day.

Also, Hansen's will be closed from Good Friday though Easter Sunday.

Opening March 28

2009-03-24T13:44:00.001-05:00

Hansen's Sno-Bliz will be opening on Saturday, March 28.

The hours will be:
Monday: Closed
Tuesday-Thursday: 1pm-7pm
Friday-Saturday: 12pm-9pm
Sunday: 1pm-7pm

Facebook page

2009-01-22T10:53:00.002-06:00

Check out the Hansen's Sno-Bliz Page on Facebook.

Closed

2008-11-04T12:55:00.000-06:00

Hansen's is now closed for the season. We will reopen next summer.

Reduced Fall hours

2008-09-23T21:37:00.001-05:00

After taking a little time off due to Hurricane Gustav, Hansen's has reopened with reduced hours for the Fall.

The current hours are Wednesday-Saturday from 1pm-7pm.

Online Exhibit Receiving Attention

2008-08-11T07:41:00.001-05:00

Since the launch of the Online Exhibit last week, snobliz.com has been noticed by local news sources.

Today an article came out in the Times-Picayune called Hansen's Sno-Blog.

Last week, the Blog of New Orleans (part of the Gambit) made a post about the website and online exhibit.

Poster session

2008-08-08T09:32:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was the Capstone Poster session for the iSchool. We each had 90 seconds to present our project and had to make a poster to go with it. I think that the session went very well. I was really happy with how my poster turned out. After watching a few people play with the website, I have a couple of minor changes to make this weekend, which I hope will help with usability.

Online Exhibit Live

2008-08-05T07:45:00.001-05:00

I am very excited to announce that the Sno-Bliz Online Exhibit is now live. The Online Exhibit is a a collection of Hansen's Sno-Bliz memorabilia, including photographs, signs, articles, and video.

You can also check out and comment on some of our photographs on our Flickr account and our videos on YouTube.

So Close

2008-07-30T16:03:00.001-05:00

I am so close to launching the Online Exhibit I can almost taste it. As of right now, all of the pages on the site look and behave the way I want them to. I just have a few technical details to work out and some text to polish.

Uploading items to the exhibit is going well. I'm figuring out some pretty cool tricks that I can do with OpenCollection.

I've also run ABBY Fine Reader 8 (an OCR program) on many of the articles and other documents and created PDFs (with mostly clean OCR) for many of them which I'm including in the Exhibit.

If all goes well, I plan to launch the Online Exhibit on Tuesday.

I also decided to simplify my cataloging. I realized that it did not make sense to separate letters from paper documents, so I folded them into the paper documents category. I've updated my Naming Schema to reflect this.

Hansen's Tee-Shirts

2008-07-29T11:46:00.001-05:00

Hansen's Sno-Bliz Tee-Shirts are back. Printed by local tee-shirt company Dirty Cost, they feature the Hansen's logo (now with triple fleurs-des-lis flag) on a yellow background.

Can't make it to Hansen's this summer? You can buy the tee-shirts online through Dirty Coast's Online Store.

Online Exhibit Preparation Update

2008-07-23T23:11:00.001-05:00

I have now gotten both OpenCollection and OpenCollectionAccess (a nice front end for OpenCollection) working on the site. I figured out how to add metadata elements, including Dublin Core. I also figured out lots of other things about how to organize stuff in OpenCollection, which I hope will add ease of browse and functionality to the Online Exhibit.

I also started working on changing the look of OpenCollectionAccess to what I want the Online Exhibit to look like, with some help from my friend Jesse. My friend Maggie pointed out that I need to make sure that the Online Exhibit is obviously a different place than the main site. I think that one of the ways to do this (other than my plan for a top nav and a different break in space for the nav) is to make the roll-over color for images different. The idea is that the color will be the roll over color for "Online Exhibit" on the main site and the "Main Site" link on the Online Exhibit will be blue. I'm thinking about going with a green, since so much of OCA already uses a green color and green is a good sno-ball color. So, the final product will probably look something like this (but I think the green will be darker):

I've uploaded and catalogued about 20 images so far. I even re-purposed one of the OC fields to link to a Flickr image of the object, and only show up on display if I've uploaded the image to Flickr. And I figured out how to make Flickr link back to the Online Exhibit. I'm really excited about this as I hope people will use either Flickr or email to let us know more about the pictures that we know almost nothing about.

As of right now, everything is locked up because I don't want people seeing an unfinished product. I hope to be able to launch everything in a week to a week and a half.

Main site live

2008-07-15T11:29:00.001-05:00

I am happy to announce that the entirety of the main Hansen's Sno-Bliz website has gone live. On it you can now find hours, directions, a list of flavors, and a brief history of the snoball stand.

The Online Exhibit is not live yet, but will be coming in the next few weeks.

OpenCollection

2008-07-13T21:29:00.002-05:00

After almost a week of trying to figure out everything that needed to be done to start running OpenCollection on SnoBliz.com, it is finally working. Now I can get to the fun part - uploading and cataloging everything that I digitized last month and setting up the Online Exhibit to look just how I want it to. I'm really excited about this. I currently have the directory hidden, but as soon as I get it where I want it, I'll make it public.

A huge thanks to Jen and Thomas at drak.net, Seth at OpenCollection.org, and my really good friend Jesse Martinez. I couldn't have done this with out all of y'all.

Robbery at Hansen's

2008-07-01T12:43:00.001-05:00

Hansen's was robbed last Friday at closing time. You can read details about it in the Times-Picayune article "Coldblooded character sticks up snowball stand". Everyone is fine, just a little shaken.

Sno-Bliz gets blogged

2008-06-30T15:43:00.001-05:00

Here are some posts about Hansen's Sno-Bliz from the past two months or so:

In Praise of the Sno-Ball by Edward Branley

New Thing #86: Josiah's Own by Lauren Elizabeth

Picture Perfect...Summertime Fun by Tallulah

Southern Belly: Hansen's Sno Bliz in New Orleans by John T. Edge, posted by Ed Levine

NOLA Travelogue: Parasol’s and Hansen’s Sno-Bliz by Pontchartrain Pete

Taste of New Orleans by Thy Tran

Who Dat?! A Wedding in New Orleans… by Keri Doolittle

What A Weekend by Miss Dante'

Scanning done

2008-06-12T10:51:00.004-05:00

I finished scanning everything yesterday. I have the exact totals at my finger tips, but I ended up scanning on site 1 cup design, a few letters/short-stories/poems, several business documents (like business cards and gift certificates), about 70 photographs, and 5 articles from magazines or newspapers (one was 12 pages long). I also took a bunch of digital photography for the website and the fun of it. I wasn't able to take shots for a QTVR panorama because I didn't have a tripod. But I hope to be able to make one for them at some point in the future (if one doesn't get made for this project).

I finalized the main website design and am mostly done building the whole thing on a test server. I still need to get content from Ashley.

Also, I mocked up a look for the online exhibit part of the site. I like it and Ashley does too.

Online Exhibit Version 1:

Two days of scanning

2008-06-06T19:21:00.001-05:00

I've spent the past two days at Hansen's Sno-Bliz scanning photographs and other items. So far we have a total of 49 digitized items, 40 of them photographs. All photograph and text items are being scanned in 24 bit color and at 400 ppi using a Brother MFC-465CN scanner.

For some reason the scanner is tinting everything slightly red, although the amount of red tint seems to vary. I made sure that my monitor was well calibrated, but it still happens, so I'm pretty sure it's not my monitor. I'm getting good at color correcting for red.

The process generally goes like this: place photograph on scanner which already has the color bar on it (add the grey scale color bars to scanner if it is a black and white photo). From the Photoshop file menu open "Brother TWAIN", pre-scan the image, select the area to scan, wait for image to scan. Immediately save tiff version of image as preservation copy. Color correct photo using eyes and color bar, rotate image so that it is straight, crop down to just around image. Save as tiff access copy. Catalogue image as best as possible (including measurements of original photo).

I'm getting pretty fast at this. I scanned 26 photographs today (and I even took a break to have a Cream of Ice Cream snoball).

Site design again

2008-06-03T16:51:00.001-05:00

Ok, after talking with Ashley and our designer and thinking about the flow of information, here is my most recent version of the website design.

Version 6a

I changed the name of "archive" to "online exhibit" because FA2 pointed out that while archive is a trendy term, online exhibit is more accurate. I also decided to move the memorial page to a special page of the online exhibit, so we can easily use scanned pictures of Mary and Ernest Hansen. I also added a Contact page that will have more detailed information than what is in the footer. I decided that with these changes only one box was needed to contain them.

Furthermore, I changed the border from the little snoballs (which really wasn't working) to a rounded edged rectangular section border. I've decided that I am much happier with that than with the snoballs. I also changed the color of "Hansen's Sno-Bliz" to the same pink as the default nav color. It's subtle, but I like it.

Naming Schema for Hansen's Sno-Bliz Digitized Files

2008-06-03T12:36:00.001-05:00

Basic naming schema

sb_xx9999_x.ext

sb = this is the code for all files to keep the set together.
xx = Two letter code to represent the original source*
9999 = number in which item was scanned. Numbering system is reset for each major type of item
x = type of digital file (preservation, access, derivative)**

*Working list of Two Letter Codes after preliminary assessment:

Code	Resource Type
ar	Newspaper/Magazine Article
au	Audio Recording
cg	Collage of Photographs (scanned as one item)
cp	Cup Image (Opaque or Transparency)
do	Paper documents (such as business cards and letters)
dp	Digital photograph (photograph was born digital)
ph	Photograph
sg	Signs
vd	Video Recording (either digitized or born digital)

**Types of digital files

A minimum of three digital files will be created for each digitized item. The raw totally unedited file is considered the preservation file and will have a 'p' at the end of the file name. A raw slightly edited (eg., color corrected, color bars removed, straightened) version of the file is considered the access file and will have an 'a' at the end of the file name. Any further modifications to the file (eg., shrinking, change of ppi, change of size, change of file type) is considered a derivative file and will have a 'd' at the end of the file.

If an item has to be scanned in parts, then there will be a letter after each part of the preservation file. The access file should be one complete file of the full stitched together image.

If there are multiple versions of a derivative file, each version will have a letter after the code, da, db, etc. The collage of photographs, the intent is to place the whole image and then detailed images of each photo online. For this purpose, each single photo section will have a two digit number after the letter d, d01, d02, d03, etc. Numbers will move from top-to-bottom and left-to-right across the collage.

Digitizing

2008-05-29T10:46:00.000-05:00

I'm back in Austin and I've started doing some digitization. Early this morning I had an appointment with the UT Library Digitization services and they digitized three of the large laminated photo collages for me. I'm really excited about those (and not only because I'm in one of them). My plan is to put up the entire image, but also break them up into smaller sections and place them on Flickr. Hopefully we'll be able to find out some of the people that we don't know.

Now I'm in the Lab digitizing some video. Two of the videos contained the same content from the Food Network, but the other one was a home movie from the early 90s that someone took while waiting online for a snoball one day.

I still need to come up with a naming schema. I hope to figure one out before next week when I start scanning the photos at the store (good thing my color bars from Amazon.com came in yesterday).

Prep-week update

2008-05-24T00:23:00.002-05:00

This has been a busy first full week on this project. I spent most of it doing prep work so that once I get started, everything will run smoothly.

I have met with archivists from Loyola, Tulane, and Historic New Orleans to see if they are interested in the collection and if the collection would be a good fit. I hope to have the archivists from Loyola and HNO come look at what we have before making a recommendation to Ashley.

Ashley and I also met with a graphic designer to talk about logos, design, and branding. She's going to take a look at the website design, so I hope that she has some good suggestions for me soon.

I also spent a lot of time setting up things so that I can start really working on stuff. I helped Ashley purchase equipment both for the shop and for this project and then set it all up so that it works on both of our computers (we both use Macs, which makes everything really easy).

As part of testing some of the new equipment, I scanned my first photo for this project. This is a very young Ashley making a snoball with her grandmother Mary and father Jerry watching. The color is somewhat off. I ordered a set of color bars from Adorama.com, but they won't come in until next week. I may rescan the photo after they come in.

I am currently in the process of setting up the backend of the website. Furthermore, I started a Flickr account and a Hansen's Sno-Bliz Flickr Group, which already has a few members. I've added a widget to this blog to display random photos from the group.

I have also started thinking about metadata and file naming conventions for the online exhibit.

The next step is to start going through the collection and select fun things to digitize.

Capstone thoughts

2008-05-15T13:24:00.000-05:00

I will be heading to New Orleans next week to get officially started on my Capstone. During this time I hope to meet with people from the archives I've been in contact with, meet with the graphic designer to help design the look of the web pages, figure out the web hosting for snobliz.com, and pick out items for the prototype online exhibit.

For the online exhibit, I talked with Fac. Advisor the other day about a scope for the prototype and this is what we agreed on (all numbers are approximate:

A variety of 50 images including (but not limited to)
- A few celebrity photos
- One or two transparencies of cup designs
- A few photos from Post-hurricanes
- Some from of the store itself
- Regular customers in the shop
One or two oversized laminated collages
10 old newspaper articles
A small sample of audio and visual material (amount depends on length)
A few QuickTime VR shots (one of interior of store, maybe one of flavor bottle)

I'm really excited about this project. I need to figure out how to acquire a set of color bars for scanning purposes and a tripod attachment for QTVR shots.

Now Open

2008-05-11T22:35:00.004-05:00

Hansen's Sno-Bliz is now open for the summer.

Currently the hours are Tuesday-Sunday 1pm-7pm.

See you there!

Contacting Archives

2008-04-10T11:06:00.003-05:00

I've started to contact several of the archives in New Orleans. So far I have gotten responses from Historic New Orleans and Loyola. I'm still waiting to hear back from Tulane. Responses so far have been positive.

Nectar Cream Video

2008-04-06T18:14:00.005-05:00

I was browsing the internet for Hansen's Sno-Bliz and I found this really touching video by Derek Toten from the Digital Storytelling Workshop hosted by Tulane Universiy, March 17-19, 2008.

Two more designs

2008-03-15T19:09:00.002-05:00

After talking with my capstone advisor about the design, he proposed the idea of having the nav bar only on the left, so I tried it.

Version 5a: Same breakup of nav as before, all on the left.

Version 5b: Nav on the left, second box broken up into two boxes.

After looking at both of these, I still think I like Version 4 better.

Final design?

2008-03-04T20:56:00.004-06:00

I think I am finally happy with the basic site design! After talking with friends and doing the environmental scan, I decided to make it much more "fun" looking.

Design Version 4 (hopefully final, minus small tweaks)

Environmental Scan

2008-03-01T17:36:00.003-06:00

Since I'm still not happy with the website design, I've decided to do an environmental scan to see what else is out there for snowball stand websites. I couldn't really find any, so I broadened my search to ice cream stands as well. The criteria that I had was that the site had to be for a pure stand (not ice cream + tourist or farm or something like that) and the site was not done in flash.

Snowcone stands:

Plum Street Snoballs - not a very well done site.

New Orleans Ice Cream Stands:

Brocatos - Really pulls in their color scheme nicely, but more about their mail-order business than the store
Creole Creamery - Good site, wish it was centered instead of left aligned. I like that they have all the flavors listed. Address and hours at the bottom of site is nice. Also like the that the ice cream cones are aligned left and the words are aligned right, also wraps text which looks nice and is, in fact, very readable. Fun and young looking.

Ice Cream Stands elsewhere:

Buttonwood Farm Ice Cream - Like that they have a calendar. Don't like that the side pictures take forever to load and that the navigation is not carried through from page to page. Looks more "businessy" than ice cream-ish
Gifford's Ice Cream - Love the "old time" look for the logo and menu and site in general. Expanding menu...don't think I'll need it, but I like the way they break up the information about the business. Also have a section for press releases.
Gray's Ice Cream - Very simple site. Map to stand.

Points to take away from all of this (and other thoughts)

Make sure site conveys the nature of the business. Is too "businessy" right now. Make it more fun.
Having a list of flavors is not only a good idea, it's industry standard for this type of site
Calendar - either list constant hours somewhere or have a calendar. Look into embedding one from Google - makes it more dynamic/easy to update
Links page or press-releases page for articles that are on the web already.
Link to this blog?
Change hours to hours & location and include a map (from Google maps?)

Well, that's a lot to think about. Time to rework some stuff, now that I have some better ideas. I'll add more sites to the list if I come across any.

Home page design version 3

2008-02-27T16:43:00.005-06:00

After talking with Ashley, I came up with a modification to the site design, mostly having to do with the logo. I found a font that is very close to the Hansen's logo on their tee-shirts and am now going to be using that. I'm debating if I want the navigation menus in the same font.

Version 3.1

Home page designs

2008-01-19T13:43:00.001-06:00

I've been working on the home page design. I have a basic concept, but am trying to refine the details. Here are the different versions I have so far. I'm partial to version 2, although none of the permutations of it are completely satisfying to me. All images open to larger versions in a new tab/window.

Version 1.5a (large title and menu, delineations of space with straight black lines):

Version 1.5b (large title and menu, delineations of space with black lines, menus in a box):

Version 2.1 (small title and menu, delineations of space with straight black lines):

Version 2.2 (small title and menu, delineations of space with straight grey lines):

Version 2.3 (small title and menu, delineations of space with straight grey lines, lines are slightly thicker with a bit of shape to them):

I also thought about lining up the images in the side menus, but I'm not sure about it.

First Post

2008-01-16T18:27:00.000-06:00

This blog was created as part of a Capstone experience for the School of Information at the University of Texas Austin. The goal of the Capstone is two fold: 1. Create a website for Hansen's Sno-Bliz and 2. Create a prototype of an online archive of Hansen's Sno-Bliz memorabilia. The second part of this project is going to be the more extensive and difficult part, but hopefully the end will be rewarding.

I am going to be using this space to hash out ideas and give updates about the project. Hopefully, it will one day also be used to provide news about goings on at Hansen's, links to news articles about the business, interesting addtions to the archive, and the like.