SPOONIVERSE! Spooniverse!
Pop-Up Ice Cream & Cereal Bar

A brand built to grow through play.

Background

Spooniverse began with a small, disarmingly simple idea from San Antonio restaurateur David Galbreath: swirl-style soft serve finished with the breakfast cereals people remember from childhood.

The physical footprint was tiny: a compact stall inside Make Ready Market, San Antonio’s downtown food hall. But the ambition was larger than a counter-service dessert concept. David wanted something emotional and transportive, a brand that could tap into Saturday-morning memory without becoming a literal cereal parody, and a flexible world that might continue to grow if the proof of concept found an audience.

Make Ready itself was already designed as a gathering place for independently owned food concepts in downtown San Antonio’s River North district, so the experiment seemed like a natural.

Challenge

The concept had to succeed within severe constraints. It occupied a small existing stall, required a straightforward ordering experience and needed to move from idea to opening in 30 days.

No time for an elaborate build-out. The identity had to communicate the offer at a glance, stand apart in a busy food hall and feel equally inviting to children, nostalgic adults, families and date-night visitors.

Creative Response

The name Spooniverse became the concept’s organizing idea. The visual language borrowed from cereal boxes, prize bursts, retro advertising, and the glorious visual excess of a grocery aisle viewed at kid height. Saturated pinks, blues and yellows; dimensional lettering; radiating fields; oversized cereal imagery; cheerful copy; and a spoon-shaped symbol worked together as a modular kit.

The stall itself became a giant cereal box. A rotating oversized cereal ring and spoon-shaped blade sign created landmarks visible across the market, while menus, cups, uniforms, point-of-sale graphics and launch materials carried the same world down to the smallest touchpoints.

Outcome

Spooniverse opened at Make Ready Market in August 2025 as a working pop-up and proof of concept. The transformation made an unusually small retail footprint feel theatrical, photographable and complete.

The pop-up demonstrated a useful model for entrepreneurial MVP-style brand development. Instead of waiting to build a permanent, fully resolved concept, David could place a vivid version of the idea in front of real customers, learn from it and decide what deserved to come next.