After a two-year hiatus a popular self-serve frozen treat shop has reopened in the West End.

Yo Cherry owner Carlos Francis closed his Sandys outlet in 2024 after two years in operation.

“I was building my own house,” the 60-year-old said. “I was running Yo Cherry in Hamilton and St George. I was working on my car and I was servicing machines at all my stores. I was just too busy to commit to it.”

Running a third store in Sandys was a lot for him, especially since he lives on the other side of the island and makes all the soft-serve ice cream himself.

He decided to reopen it when his daughter, Zakira Francis, said she would take it over.

“I’ve got more help now,” he said. “My daughter is taking on a lot of the making of stuff. I also have more staff.”

Customers reacted with enthusiasm when he reopened two weeks ago.

“They have been asking about it for the longest time,” he said.

He has not launched a marketing campaign for the Sandys location yet, because he is still trying to work out the kinks.

“The machine has been sitting there for a while,” he said. “We had to fire them up and make sure that everything was working right. There were a couple of things that needed to be recalibrated and repaired. One of the machines is still not ready yet.”

Mr Francis has his challenges running the business such as the rising cost of candy. The wholesale price of his toppings has gone up in recent years.

“I am also being hammered by the sugar tax,” he said. “My product is essentially sugar.”

Bermuda enacted the tax in 2018 to combat the island’s high rates of obesity and diabetes.

The business owner thinks moderation is a better answer to the health crisis.

“I started taking my health seriously two years ago,” he said. “I have not eliminated sugar altogether, but I have reduced it. I only have ice cream once a week.”

Meanwhile, he is coping with the price increases with increased efficiency.

He feels he has an unexpected advantage in the struggle for success — dyslexia. People with the language-based learning disorder usually have normal to above average intelligence, but have challenges with reading and spelling.

He realised he had dyslexia while watching a 1990s television programme called Journey Through Dyslexia.

“It fit me like a glove,” he said. “I didn’t have one of the characteristics, I had all of them.”

He believes that navigating academic challenges at an early age honed his problem-solving skills.

He said that a significant number of small and medium-sized businesses are run by dyslexic people, because they don’t fit the normal mode.

“It is often easier to create their own work, than to work for someone else,” he said.

Growing up in Jamaica, he left school and started working with a motor mechanic at 13. After six months, the work came naturally to him.

He came to Bermuda at 17 and spent much of his life here working in construction.

“I built houses all over the island,” he said.

He and his wife, Regina, started Yo Cherry in 2013, but Mrs Francis has since gone back to working in the insurance industry.