Ice Cream News
Two Dallas ice cream shops close in the same week
At a time when ice cream shops have been opening left and right, two worthy shops in Dallas have closed, coincidentally within days of each other.
Betty Ringer Ice Cream, the artisanal shop at Sylvan Thirty, closed on October 5, which owner Stephen Smith announced via a post on Instagram.
"So I had to say goodnight to my lovely shop today," Smith said. "We lasted a solid 15 months in this location. I want to thank everyone who supported us and helped us through everything. This was the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life, and I enjoyed every second of it. I’ll be back again, somewhere, sometime. Again, thank you to everyone who came through those doors. I truly appreciate each and every one of you."
Betty Ringer was perhaps the best ice cream shop that has ever opened in Dallas. Smith, who is also a candy maker, did a good job on his recipes, using the best ingredients and achieving an ideal texture. He was also highly creative on his flavors with options such as licorice combined with chocolate.
Sylvan Thirty still lacks the customer mass to make a walk-up ice cream shop work, but Smith says he hopes to re-open in another location.
Lake Highlands Creamery, an independently-owned ice cream shop from Sean Brockette, closed on October 9, via an announcement on Facebook. The shop is closing its storefront and handing over its recipes to Atomic Pie, the pizzeria with whom it shared space.
"We wanted to let everyone know that effective today, we will be folding operations into Atomic Pie," the post said. "We will have our dipping cabinet on the far side entrance of Atomic Pie. The new landlords decided they wanted to use our space to bring in an upscale coffee shop and increased our rent 3x our current rate. We just can't justify or absorb that cost so we are giving up our current space."
Brockette was doing good ice cream and also served as a destination for the neighborhood, although not as big a destination as might have been ideal. It probably didn't help when an Andy's custard shop opened across the street in a rather indie-crushing predatory manner.
But according to the Facebook post, the ice cream will carry on:
"In the next few months, as construction on the center moves along we will also re-brand under the Atomic Pie brand," it says. "We will still make the best ice cream in Dallas you have come to enjoy over the past 4 years. Our original owner Sean Brockette will be stepping away from the business to focus on other opportunities. Tom Goodale will continue to oversee operations of the new ice cream shop as well as Atomic Pie."
