Earnest Ice Cream gearing up to open two new locations this summer

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      It’s a known fact that Vancouverites love eating ice cream year-round (it isn’t rare to see people around town licking their frozen treats in the middle of winter), but even more so during the hot summer days.

      One of our city’s favourite ice-cream joints is preparing to open two additional locations—one in a Vancouver industrial area and the other on the North Shore—and we couldn’t be more overjoyed.

      Earnest Ice Cream is currently working on opening a large production kitchen and retail shop between Clark Drive and Commercial Drive (1485 Frances Street). The 5,200-square-foot location will mainly cater to ice-cream production.

      “First and foremost [this] space is a production kitchen, which means most of the square footage is dedicated to a blast freezer and storage freezer,” Benjamin Ernst, co-founder of Earnest Ice Cream, told the Straight in a phone interview. “And those are easily at least a third of the space.”

      The rest of the area will be used as a kitchen to prep and create magic (by magic, we mean mouth-watering frozen treats). A small part of the space will be allocated for retail purposes, because the owners want customers to be able to get their hands on some ice cream.

      “We just thought, ‘Well, we are going be there anyways, so wouldn’t it be nice to have some way that people could access our ice cream?’ and it would be kind of like a factory store,” explained Ernst.

      The scooping area won’t have any interior seats, but its front-of-house space will be large enough for the line-up to form inside the shop.

      “We are definitely planning on doing a bench for outdoor seating,” said Ernst. “We are also right near [Woodland] park, so when it’s ice cream season in the summer time, it’s fantastic to be outdoors and enjoying your ice cream in the park.”

      Strathcona and Lower Lonsdale will be getting a little sweeter.
      Earnest Ice Cream/Facebook

      All of Earnest Ice Cream’s production currently takes place at its Quebec Street location, which supplies products to its Fraser Street shop and processes wholesale orders.

      “The reason that we are opening this larger production space in the first place is so that we can open future locations,” said Ernst. “And we’ll be able to make those future locations a little bit smaller because they won’t need kitchens inside.”

      One of those future spots will be in the North Shore—the owners have already secured a location in Lower Lonsdale (127 West 1st Street, North Vancouver).

      It will occupy 1,240-square-feet, and offer 16 seats. Guests can expect a similar laidback and welcoming interior that is seen at its other locations, with plenty of wood and natural materials inside the space.

      “Construction is about to start, but we’re still waiting to get our permit from the City of North Vancouver,” said Ernst. “We are aiming for that location to open before peak summer, hopefully sometime in July.”

      Get ready to choose your scoops—will it be London Fog, Salted Caramel, Whiskey Hazelnut, or one of its seasonal flavours? We will go for all of the above. 

      Follow Tammy Kwan on Twitter @ch0c0tam and Instagram @ch0c0tam.

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