LONG BEACH, Calif. — The Long Beach Creamery is making new flavors while also preparing for some of the most challenging months yet.

It started as an after-work obsession in her own home. Now Long Beach Creamery founder Dina Amadril owns three shops.

“It’s very demanding, yeah, sometimes it’s like a marathon in here!” Amadril said.

Amadril said at the beginning of the pandemic, sales were pretty steady and not far off from the previous year. Stimulus money gave people a little more comfort, and people were tipping a lot, she said.

In June, sales started to dive, which hurts all the more because summer is an ice cream parlor’s most profitable window.

“People have to make all kinds of hard decisions, and sometimes supporting your local ice cream shop just is not in the mix,“ Amadril said.

Amadril said she got a Paycheck Protection Program loan, an Economic Injury Disaster loan, plus $10,000 from the city of Bellflower. She’s also removed some labor-intensive items from the menu — like cone bowls — because there aren’t enough employees on staff anymore to do it all, she said.

The pressure hasn’t crushed creativity, though. “Honor Ruth” is their newest flavor. It’s named for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and flavored after one of the icon’s favorite desserts.

Frequent customer and CEO of the business next door, Julia Huang promised to cover the costs of making it.

“My chief financial officer is going to kill me, but I didn’t know how much it was going to cost, but we knew that it was the right thing to do,” said Huang, the founder of Intertrend, a creative agency in Long Beach.

Amadril said she is donating the profits to the American Civil Liberties Union.

On Election Day, the Bixby Knolls and downtown locations of Long Beach Creamery will be open from 3 to 9 p.m. The first 100 voters to show their “I voted” sticker will receive a free scoop of ice cream.