Karen’s Quirky New York Screams for Ice Cream

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month. The third Sunday in July is National Ice Cream Day. A license to indulge in pleasure if I ever heard one! I just discovered the best destination to indulge our sweetest national obsession: the Museum of Ice Cream, on Broadway, a block below Houston.

Americans are second in the world when it comes to eating this frozen delight: We average 5.5 gallons a year! New Zealand has the highest ice cream consumption per person, at 7.5 gallons per year. Third is Australia, followed, surprisingly, by a number of countries above the 49th parallel: Finland, Sweden, Canada, Denmark, and Ireland.

The Museum of Ice Cream (MOIC) is Maryellis Bunn’s sweet daydream come to life. Previously head of forecasting and innovation at Time Inc., and a consultant on design and business strategy for Facebook, Bunn wanted to create an interactive, multi-sensory playground with no age limits. The museum offers all-you-can-eat ice cream with the price of admission, as well as a series of gloriously pink-lit, photogenic rooms that bring out the fun gene.

Bunn partnered with Manish Vora, a former investment banker and CEO, in 2016. They pooled their money to finance a pop-up exhibit in the Meatpacking District. The combination of ice cream in every form imaginable, family-friendly exhibits, and a light sprinkling of learning opportunities made their “experium” a hit. In 2019, they opened their flagship location in SoHo.

Now MOIC has seven US locations and one in Singapore, which is seeing an increase in the popularity of the sweet frozen treat. If you’re tired of getting lost in the poorly signaged, ginormous Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOIC may be for you. It caters to all ages, and that means cocktails! You can order a cocktail the minute you walk in the door—not after an hour of trying to find your way to the Met’s Petrie Court Café while battling hundreds of visitors.

MOIC is a simple one-way trip, culminating in their Willy Wonka-inspired three-story slide. It is safe for all ages, and you can even keep your high-heel slides on (as I did). I screamed the whole way down but came to a gentle stop, shoes intact.

There’s nothing like screaming like a fool to loosen your inhibitions! So, naturally, people are ready to shuck their shoes and jump in the sprinkle pool once they land at the bottom of the slide. It might seem stupid, but it’s surprisingly fun. And that captures the essence of the Museum of Ice Cream—sweet, simple fun.

I did learn something—but not too much! I’d never encountered Dippin’ Dots, for instance. Have you? These ice cream beads are flash-frozen using liquid nitrogen, which gives them a smoother, denser, creamier texture than ordinary ice cream. MOIC has two flavors—cookies’n’cream and a blueberry sherbet for non-dairy-treat lovers.

There’s also some presidential ice cream trivia. Former president Barack Obama scooped ice cream at a Baskin-Robbins in the summer of 1978. He remembers, “My first summer job wasn’t exactly glamorous, but it taught me some valuable lessons: responsibility, hard work, balancing a job with friends, family, and school.” Here’s a presidential trivia question: Whose favorite ice cream is chocolate chip? Answer: Joe Biden. Do you know the current president’s favorite flavor? A little homework assignment for you.

If you visit MOIC, you’ll learn about quirky flavors like Alaska’s Akutaq (caribou fat, salmonberries, fish, and tundra greens) and Missouri’s brown-sugar-covered cicada ice cream. But I promise, all MOIC’s flavors on offer are vegetarian!

I hope this story has stirred some happy memories for you! One of my early ice cream memories is of a summer day in Vancouver, home of 40-year-old La Casa Gelato, a Guinness World Record holder for ice cream, with 238 flavors in store and 588 flavors to date!

My sister Kim and I were wearing pale blue sundresses patterned with sprigged flowers that my mom made. Mom was wearing a more grown-up version of the dress and I thought she was truly the most beautiful woman in the world. A friend had lent us her convertible, and we were going to drive downtown to surprise my dad at his office. Mom got Kim and me chocolate cones at Dairy Queen as a special treat. Of course, the ice cream melted in the sun in the back of the convertible and dripped all over our pretty pale blue dresses. Was she mad! A dip in the sprinkle pool would have set things right.

Style Notes

I found my ice cream-toned outfit at Crossroads Trading. Total cost after trading in a few items, too: $38.

Museum of Ice Cream, 558 Broadway (between Prince and Spring streets), no phone. General admission price is based on time, date, availability, and perks can be as low as $39 and as high as $88.

Karen Rempel is a New York-based writer, model, and artist. Her Karen’s Quirky New York column illuminates quirky clothes and places in Manhattan. For past stories, see https://karenqs.nyc.