Jan NorrisWest Palm Beach store is open with others planned in Palm Beach Gardens, Delray Beach.
There’s a new cone in town, and it’s a New Yorker.
Van Leeuwen, an ice cream chain from Brooklyn that’s expanding nationwide, is scooping out three of its first five Florida outlets in Palm Beach County.
The first opened early this month in West Palm Beach’s new Nora District. The next is scheduled to open in October at Downtown Palm Beach Gardens next to fellow New Yorker, Grimaldi’s Pizza.
Editor’s note: Van Leeuwen announced that the Gardens store is opening on Oct. 23 with $1 scoops from 1 to 3 pm.
Since locally owned Sloan’s moved out of its space under the CMX movie theater, Downtown has been without an ice cream shop. Van Leeuwen’s is among many new tenants at the outdoor mall that has undergone extensive reconstruction and recently added large anchors REI Co-op and the Life Time fitness club.
The mall changed ownership last year, with outdoor mall investor EDENS, which has offices in Miami, taking ownership from an affiliate of Chicago-based ShopCore Properties.
Van Leeuwen is recognized as a premium ice cream, and has both dairy and vegan versions of what it labels as “French” ice cream in its counter-serve shops. They list their basic ingredients in what ice cream aficionados recognize as a custard base that uses milk, full-fat cream, extra egg yolks and cane sugar. The vegan version is made with coconuts, cashews and oat milk.
They’re unapologetic about the traditional fat and sugary ingredients, stating on their website, “Yes, our ice cream has fat. And that’s okay. It’s good-good, not good-bad.”
What began as a food truck in Brooklyn in 2008, created by brothers Ben and Pete Van Leeuwen, and friend Laura O’Neill, the company morphed into brick-and-mortar shops in and around New York City. It caught on, and after private equity firm Nextworld invested millions in 2020, the company grew into a chain with stores in New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Texas, California and Colorado.
They have a store in Miami Beach and another coming to Miami but their website lists just three other new Florida stores: Nora at 870 N. Railroad Ave., Gardens and in Delray Beach’s Sundy Village at 25 SW First Ave.
The company’s full menu includes dairy and vegan ice cream scoops and cups, ice cream sandwiches, ice cream bars, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, candy, cookie sandwiches, ice cream sundaes and milkshakes.
Scoops cost $5.50 for traditional ice creams, and $6 for vegan. A pint is $12. They also sell pints in grocery stores.
Fans can find traditional and unique flavors among the 32-plus in their repertoire, including vanilla bean, mint chip, strawberry, chocolate, and those that sound as though they’re part bakery: marionberry cheesecake, peanut butter brownie honeycomb, buttermilk berry cornbread, lemon poppy seed muffin, hazelnut fudge cookie.
A few savory flavors have made their way into the mix, including mac and cheese, and ranch.
Vegans can choose similar flavors, with snickerdoodle, strawberry shortcake, churros and fudge, hazelnut fudge cookie, chocolate banana cream pie, and praline butter cake.
Flavors change, and with fall, specials include pumpkin cheesecake, Italian hazelnut, passion fruit sorbet, and vegan pumpkin cinnamon roll.
Their best seller is honeycomb, which has inspired a class-action lawsuit in New York, claiming misrepresentation. Claimants say there is no honeycomb, nor even honey, in Van Leeuwen’s branded ice creams labeled as honeycomb. The suit is ongoing.
Jan’s a journalist covering the South Florida dining scene for 30-plus years. (She knows where the bones and onion peels are buried.) She’s a Florida native, remembers the state pre-Disney, and travels frequently to visit family and friends from the Keys to the Panhandle.
