By Brendan Fitzgibbons
Dogs can pant to cool themselves down, but humans? All we’ve got is ice cream. Lucky for us, New York offers no shortage of chilly treats, from handcrafted scoops and smooth sorbets to fruity popsicles and milky, refreshing floats. Sit back, lower that body temperature, and enjoy these five spots for sweet treats.
Ample Hills Creamery
Prospect Heights | 623 Vanderbilt Ave., Brooklyn
One lick of Ample Hills’ ice cream, and you might wish you were on a hill of it. This Prospect Heights shop makes their sweet treats by hand using local and all-natural ingredients. Their menu of more than 20 ever-changing flavors includes options like The Munchies—stuffed with Ritz crackers, mini M&Ms, potato chips, and pretzels—or Salted Crack Caramel, which mingles saltine-based “crack cookies” with salted butter-caramel ice cream. The eclectic selection means that Ample Hills is that rare ice-cream shop where the adults are often just as excited as the kids. The ice-cream maestros recently opened a second location in Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 5, as well as mobile carts that rove around Pier 1 and the Carousel.
Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain
Carroll Gardens | 513 Henry St., Brooklyn
The employees at Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain are jerks—but that’s only true in the sense that they wear the word on their T-shirts. The store has a vibe that’s as friendly and welcoming as any establishment in Brooklyn, with delectable treats and floats to boot. The jerks’ signature drink, the Brooklyn egg cream, tastes like a chocolate water fountain of fizzy hope. If you’re really tired or need to be revived from cardiac arrest, you can also try the Wake Up Call, a coffee soda with coffee and a hearty glob of ice cream.
Get a sneak peak of Brooklyn Farmacy’s new cookbook, The Soda Fountain, on The Groupon Guide.
Cones
West Village | 272 Bleecker St., NYC
The multicolored scoops on the sign of this tasty West Village shop could be mistaken for a double rainbow. But the façade is only a taste of the wide range of Argentine gelato flavors available inside. Spread out in a massive cold case, they all look like they’re on trial for their sugary goodness. Try the coffee mocha chip, ginger, or tiramisu, and don’t forget the silky sorbets in flavors like cantaloupe, mango, and even chocolate. This is gelato that’s so good, it can even stand in for a trip to the bar: the whiskey-flavored gelato is so strong that customers have to show their ID.
People’s Pops
Multiple locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn
Remember the popsicles you used to make as a kid? People’s Pops are not those popsicles. The menu reads more like a list of a sorcerer’s potions than a list of frozen-treat flavors: blackberry and lemon verbena, organic lemon and mint, rhubarb and star anise. Each People’s Pop is packed with the freshest local fruits, so enjoying one is like licking a deliciously cool farmer’s market. The artisanal shop began as a one-day experiment, but has since blossomed into four permanent locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, with pop-up stands at Smorgasburg and the Brooklyn Flea on the weekends.
Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream
Multiple locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn
Everything about Van Leeuwen ice cream is classy. Just saying the name “Van Leeuwen” feels like you’re floating on a superior ice-cream cloud. At three locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan, employees scoop out flavors made with hormone- and antibiotic-free milk. Van Leeuwen also has a traveling truck that would make any normal ice-cream truck want to go back to ice-cream-truck school. Try the espresso and earl grey flavors, or ceylon cinnamon, which has a spicy, dusty kick. Van Leeuwen also keeps special flavors on rotation, including a sweet, sticky black rice flavor for the adventurous tongue.
Shop Groupon for coffee and treats in New York City.
People's Pops photo by Bethany Bandera. Brooklyn Farmacy photo reprinted with permission from The Soda Fountain by Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain, Inc. copyright (c) 2014. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Random House LLC. Photography (c) 2014 by Michael Harlan Turkell.
Read More
Coffee & Treats in North Bergen
Frozen Peaks
$12 for Popsicles at Frozen Peaks ($22.50 Value)
Choice of 21 rotating fro-yo flavors and a variety of toppings; popsicle rolled in a topping such as nuts, cookies, fruit, candy, or cereal
Greenwich Village
Up to 53% Off Award-Winning Café Food at Mara's Cafe & Bakery
Mara's Cafe & Bakery
New York
$20 $10
Pair in-house roasted coffee with quiche, gelato, pastries, and sandwiches at the new location of an award-winning coffeehouse
Up to 50% Off Healthy Snacks and Food at D'Vida Health Bar
D'Vida Health Bar
Multiple Locations
$20 $12
Juice cocktails, frozen yogurt, custom health bars, specialty and functional smoothies, or Smooccino smoothies infused with espresso
Up to 45% Off Bubble Teas or Smoothies at Red Bubble
Red Bubble
Lower East Side
$4 $2.20
A huge menu of milk teas and Hong Kong-style drinks makes this shop a drink destination
Select Local Merchants
Jerome Chang, the mastermind behind the much-lauded DessertTruck, gave his desserts a grounded home at Cathcart & Reddy, a café on the Lower East Side that sells many of the truck’s wares while expanding its purview. Run by Chang and two pastry chefs, all credited in their New York magazine listing as Le Cirque school alumni, the truck was nominated for two Vendy Awards and received heavy attention in a New York Times feature on dessert trucks for gourmet sweets that include chocolate bread pudding, vanilla crème brûlée, and french macaroons. The café also sells pressed sandwiches with mellifluous fillings such as goat cheese with caramelized almonds, thyme, and apricot jam, or domestic serrano ham with manchego, roasted garlic, and pine nuts.
When not slinging sweets behind the counter, staffers can be found in the kitchen, baking new batches of desserts or hosting workshops for aspiring chefs. Scheduled every few days throughout each month, the classes teach patrons kitchen secrets such as how to craft perfect soufflés and macaroons or gauge a cook’s feelings by the color of his chef’s hat.
6 Clinton St
New York,
NY
US
Berrywild urges the sweet tooth to shed its shame and embrace a deliciously fatless dessert option. A menu of nonfat frozen yogurts stretches out over an artistically modern and intimate space, where healthy dessertists congregate over yummy fare. Fro-yo is served up in one of two special textures for discerning palates: berry smooth keeps the mouth properly coddled with its creamy agenda while kinda icy varieties instill subtle jags of frozen wonder for feisty teeth that enjoy a good frigid chomp. Though flavors may vary by season, taste buds can delight in the signature tanginess of plain frozen yogurt and the distinct flavors of Caribbean coffee, banana, passion fruit, and pomegranate offerings.
818 Lexington Ave
New York,
NY
US
The Nutbox cracks open an assortment of nuts, candies, natural seeds, and snacks and mixes. Fill up assorted sizes of eco-pine gift boxes ($14.99), made from ecologically sustained forests in Wisconsin, with 1-pound bags of your plucking, such as dried blueberries ($15.99), sun-dried tomatoes ($4.99), or vegetable chips ($19.99). Caffeine connoisseurs can follow their nose and dopamine transmitters to the Nicaraguan ($14.99) and Tanzanian peaberry ($13.99) fair-trade organic coffee beans. The Nutbox gives back to the community by supporting several charity events throughout the year, and their cheery locations feature glossy hardwood floors and appetite-inducing orange hues, making snack selection an even more pleasant process than usual.
49 E 8th St
New York,
NY
US
It's never too late to give a gift that's actually three gifts containing a multitude of other gifts—like a set of Russian nesting dolls filled with ball bearings. For $25, you get one Gingerbread Holiday Stacker from the world-famous Dylan's Candy Bar, a $40 value. This triple-tiered package is stacked with sweets and comes topped with a first-place blue ribbon and holiday bell powerful enough to get snow angels their wings and make newborn babies salivate for the first time.
1011 3rd Ave
New York,
NY
US
With more than 845 locations, Jamba Juice proves to the masses that nutrition can be speedy and delicious. Since the beginning, the company’s product philosophy has revolved around choosing whole fruits and other natural ingredients over artificial flavorings, sweeteners, and preservatives. The menu is completely free of high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats, and it offers additional accommodations for vegan and gluten-free diets.
This naturalistic approach is fully realized in Jamba Juice's selection of smoothies. Made with 100% fruit juice, sherbet, and frozen yogurt, the frosty delights range from all-fruit smoothies such as Peach Perfection and Strawberry Whirl to more indulgent creamy treats, including Peanut Butter Moo'd, an enticing blend of peanut butter, bananas, nonfat vanilla frozen yogurt, and milk chocolate. The lunch hour presents toasted bistro sandwiches and California Flatbreads that pack only about 320–420 calories each.
In addition to providing healthy eats to customers, Jamba Juice sponsors Team Up for a Healthy America. The initiative fights childhood obesity while encouraging fans to join the Team Up community of celebrities, athletes and other leaders committed to getting kids active—which they can do by visiting the main Jamba Juice website.
4342 Palisades Center Dr
West Nyack,
NY
US
DeliManjoo Bakery is a Korean bakery where taste buds are treated to whimsically shaped cookies and crispy snacks. A unique selection of treats awaits guests: signature walnut cakes that couple double as an upgrade from paper footballs, frosting-drizzled cookies that look like fish, and puffed-rice discs called Magic Pop. One of the most popular snacks in Korea, low-calorie Magic Pop—available in flavors like pumpkin, honey wheat, and blueberry—can be used to sandwich sweet whipped cream or savory cheese.
77-79 Bayard St.
New York,
NY
US