Ice Cream News

Artisan ice cream shop from Brooklyn is opening a location in Dallas

Their ice cream is incomparably rich and luscious.

Photo courtesy of Rice Village

UPDATE 4-27-2022: There's an opening date for the very first Dallas location of Van Leeuwen: Saturday, May 7. Aside from their 30 flavors of ice cream and vegan ice cream, the Dallas store will also offer ice cream sundaes, ice cream sandwiches, root beer floats, and milkshakes. For the May 7 opening, they will be offering $1 scoops all day.

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A cult favorite ice cream from Brooklyn is coming to Dallas: Van Leeuwen, whose New York ice cream shops have earned a dedicated following, is opening a location at Dallas' West Village.

The shop will take over the former Paciugo Gelato space, which closed in 2020; according to a spokesperson, the shop is slated to open by early 2022.

Van Leeuwen was founded by brothers Ben and Pete Van Leeuwen and Laura O'Neill in 2008 as a food truck before expanding to a brick-and-mortar operation, with 17 shops across New York. In recent years they've executed an expansion, both opening new shops and making their pints, which are packaged in cool pastel-tinted cartons, available in supermarkets such as Sprouts and Central Market.

"The idea came out of our passion for artisanally produced foods," O'Neill told PBS. "We set out to make the best possible ice cream using only fresh milk and cream, cane sugar, egg yolks and the finest flavors ingredients from small producers locally and around the world."

They take an artisanal approach to everything including using ingredients from like-minded acclaimed vendors such as Intelligentsia Coffee. At their shops, they also feature pastries, cakes, scones, muffins, and cookies, using the same carefully procured chocolates, spices, nuts and fruits used in their ice cream.

They offer more than 40 flavors, including a robust vegan/nondairy selection, which they make from a variety of milks including coconut, cashew, and oats; with their super creamy texture, they're easily among the best vegan/nondairy ice creams on the market.

Shops typically offer 30 to 32 flavors, a mix of dairy and vegan, plus four special flavors every month, made, in the company's parlance, "without junk," from milk, cream, eggs, and cane sugar (or their vegan equivalents).

The distinct flavors come from an obsession with sourcing high quality ingredients such as Sicilian pistachios, cold-pressed Tahitian vanilla, and organic black tea from Rishi. For example, their Honeycomb flavor uses a honeycomb-shaped candy that's made in house.

The company made its Texas debut in May 2021 with the opening of a shop in Houston, where they have two more openings planned. Houston was their third market, joining New York City and Los Angeles, and they've since opened locations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

They mark the second big name in ice cream to come to Dallas: Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream entered the market in February 2021 with a shop in Deep Ellum, and will host a grand opening of a second shop, this one in Addison, on October 28.

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Eric Sandler contributed to this story.

ice-cream desserts openings

PIZZA PROBLEMS

Plano-based Pizza Hut to close 250 restaurants as U.S. sales plummet

Pizza Hut/Facebook

Pizza Hut will close 250 restaurants by mid-2026.

By the middle of the year, the country will have fewer Pizza Huts. Yum! Brands, the parent company of the almost 70-year-old chain, announced it plans to close an estimated 250 restaurants — about 4 percent of Pizza Hut's massive global footprint.

The closures were revealed during Yum's fourth quarter earnings call on February 4. While Yum! Brands is based in Louisville, Kentucky, Pizza Hut is headquartered in Plano.

Yum! representatives said that U.S. Pizza Hut store sales slid 3 percent as value initiatives, like the $5 Crafted Flatzz personal pizza, have failed to take hold with customers, who are increasingly spending their pizza budget at rival Domino’s.

In November 2025, Yum! Brands announced that it would launch a “formal review of strategic options,” a program called “Hut Forward,” which officials said could result in a global reduction in the number of Pizza Hut outlets or an eventual sale of the concept.

“The Pizza Hut team has been working hard to address business and category challenges; however, Pizza Hut’s performance indicates the need to take additional action to help the brand realize its full value, which may be better executed outside of Yum! Brands,” said Chris Turner, CEO of Yum! Brands, in a previous press release.

It’s unclear how any such sale would affect the franchise’s Plano headquarters. The corporation is currently in the process of moving KFC, which has been experiencing its own financial struggles, from Kentucky to its Plano home base.

In recent years, the overall pizza landscape has been rocky for national chains. Concepts like Papa John’s, Blaze Pizza, and Mod Pizza have closed units as dining shifts increasingly to favor more “interesting” concepts like Nashville-style hot chicken. In early January, the Wall Street Journal reported that pizzerias are no longer the second most popular chain format in the U.S., plummeting below Mexican restaurants and coffee shops to sixth place.

Although Pizza Hut has not disclosed exactly which locations would be shuttering, it did say it expects to wrap up the closure round by the middle of 2026.

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