After a seven-month closure, Ample Hills Creamery has reopened its outpost at 526 Amsterdam Avenue (between West 85th and West 86th streets). Special thanks to @travelwithbrandon for the heads up!
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Before last Christmas, the Brooklyn-based chain closed all of its locations after the owners, married couple Brian Smith and Jackie Cuscuna, were forced by bankruptcy to sell their beloved business. They had founded the ice cream company in 2011.
Ample Hills first opened in the neighborhood in July 2022 and, following a seven-month closure, re-opened on July 16th, which is National Ice Cream Day.
According to the New York Times, the creamery is back under its original owners, who repurchased the shop for $150,000 from Schmitt Industries, the company they had sold Ample Hills to for $1 million. But Schmitt Industries struggled to make the business work, eventually putting the company in receivership, and selling off its assets, which also included a factory that cost $7 million to build located in Red Hook.
Ample Hills Creamery has returned to the Upper West Side.
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Smith remained busy during the pandemic, using his Vitamix blender to create a new ice cream formula and blending a variation of different ingredients, using fewer egg yolks, less sugar, and more glucose for a taffy-like texture, he told the Times. They expect to implement the new formula gradually as they slowly reopen Ample Hills throughout Manhattan and Queens, with a new production facility and scoop shop in Brooklyn’s Industry City.
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On a recent scorching summer day, Upper West Siders sought refuge from the heat by crowding inside, relishing the blissful coolness of the air conditioning while indulging in delightful scoops of “Brooklyn’s freshest” ice cream.
Ample Hills Creamery at 526 Amsterdam Avenue is open Sunday through Thursday (1 p.m. – 10 p.m.) and Friday and Saturday (1 p.m. – 11 p.m.).
These ice cream shops that open and close all the time and charge $9 for a cone feel more scammy than the weed bodegas do. The weed bodegas might technically be illegal but they have more integrity.
The only thing scammy are the rents charged by landlords forcing businesses to raise prices to cover the rent. Even with all the vacant properties landlords still refuse to lower rents.
When national chains Gap, Best Buy, and Lowe’s can no longer afford rents what chance do small businesses like ice cream shops have?
Yea so they just open and close, move around a lot, go in and out of bankruptcy — you know, scammy.
Is it better than Blue Marble?
Blue Marble’s ice cream was/is next to awful.