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We always recommend starting with the Salty Pimp, our most popular cone. If someone goes to Big Gay Ice Cream for the first time, what should he or she order? But we’ve learned our lesson with Los Angeles: you won’t hear about them until they’re ready to open. That said, next year you’ll probably see a few more Big Gay Ice Cream shops open. We haven’t given up on that, but we also have no timeline for it to happen now. We are still working on trying to get our Los Angeles shop up and running. We have a non-stop schedule of events and festivals that take us into December. The Greenwich Village Big Gay Ice Cream shop. We are constantly thrilled, amazed, overwhelmed, and grateful to everyone who has helped make the business what it is today. (Cue sinister laughter.) Honestly though, we had no idea what to expect when we started. When you launched Big Gay Ice Cream, was there a world domination plan? Did you see a day when you’d have multiple shops, a cookbook, celebrity friends? We’ve collaborated with Humphry Slocombe (San Francisco), Joe Beef (Montreal), Sunshine Tavern (Portland, Ore.), Gema Pizzeria (Montreal), Fidel Gastro’s Lisa Marie (Toronto), and in a few weeks we’ll be in Chicago with Hot Chocolate and Bang Bang Pie & Biscuits. In addition to a lot of straight-up book signings and appearances, we’ve also teamed up with many chefs and restaurant owners for pop-ups and special menus. Even the turnout in cities where we aren’t located has been great. (Photo: Big Gay Ice Cream)Īs crazy as the tour has been, it’s been a lot of fun. Petroff and Quint feigning boredom at a book signing event. Fortunately, we have three great store teams to run the shops while we are on the road. I think on more than one occasion I forgot where I actually was. For a while there we were in a different city every day. It’s been pretty nonstop and we still have a few more months of events planned. On top of that, it’s a great blank slate for so many other flavors and combinations. When it’s great, vanilla is like the best glass of cold milk you’ve ever had. We may sound, well, vanilla, for saying so, but it’s, well, vanilla. We like chocolate when it’s been kicked up a notch in some way, such as spicy or salty.
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It was never our go-to dessert, even growing up. What do you think of that?Īs long as there’s ice cream inside, the vessel is incidental.Īnd any guess as to America’s favorite flavor? Spoiler alert: It’s chocolate.
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(Photo: Big Gay Ice Cream)Ĭups also beat cones. Perhaps we should continue to trust in the wisdom of the Northeast. But, getting back to the question at hand, let’s remember this: The Northeast gave us our independence, our Founding Fathers, doughnuts, and legalized same-sex marriage. Although one strange thing started happening after opening our shops: We began to hear from naysayers that soft serve wasn’t “real ice cream.” What does that even mean? It’s amazing how many self-professed “foodies” have no idea what actually goes in to making ice cream in general, and soft serve ice cream specifically. That’s foolish ice cream is great in all its forms. We’re certainly not going to say someone’s choice in ice cream is wrong. Ice cream is too important of a food group to stick to just one variety.Īccording to the survey, Americans also prefer traditional scoops to soft serve. Of course we eat other brands of ice cream. Here’s an email chat we had with Petroff about brand building, book signings, and America’s ice cream preferences.ĭo you ever eat other brands, or do you feel like you’re cheating on yourselves? They also published their first cookbook this summer - “Big Gay Ice Cream Saucy Stories & Frozen Treats: Going All the Way with Ice Cream,” and it boasts an introduction by none other than food world royalty Anthony Bourdain.Īs Yahoo Food’s Ice Cream Nation week comes to a close, we thought it would be fun to check in on Big Gay Ice Cream. The duo behind Big Gay Ice Cream, Bryan Petroff and Douglas Quint, has expanded their operation to include two shops in Manhattan, one in Philadelphia, and one more on the way in Los Angeles. And now they do have a world domination plan, sort of. Fans lined up daily and they were the hit of the season, like that catchy pop song you hear every time you head to the beach.Įxcept unlike that Top 40 tune, they’re still here. But their soft serve was yummy, the founders charming and forthright, and the concept bold enough to catch the attention of jaded New Yorkers. It seemed like a quirky summertime thing - an old ice cream truck with a funny name run by a bassoonist and a fashion executive. When Big Gay Ice Cream launched in 2009, no one was thinking world-domination plan. Sprinkle-laden cones from Big Gay Ice Cream.