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Christopher Elbow is ready to show off the fruits or chocolates or whatever other ice cream flavor he's been laboring on for tonight's First Friday visitors at his shop in the Crossroads.
"I'm revisiting the classics -- looking to make a fresher, stronger strawberry flavor," says Elbow. This is in anticipation of the new shop, Glace Artisan Ice Cream, that Elbow hopes to open by mid-to-late May at 4960 Main.
Elbow signed the lease for the space in January and received a construction permit three weeks ago. The space is being built-out now.
"It will be modern, white and clean. A little colder than [the space downtown], a play on the coldness of ice cream," he says.
When Elbow was scouting locations, the new restaurant row on Main Street drew him in. The shop is located in the same development at Spin! Neopolitan Pizza and Accurso's.
"It's a cool little
corridor, close to Brookside, with plenty of families walking by," says Elbow.
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And for those who enjoy a piece of chocolate with their frozen custard, the new shop won't change Elbow's partnership with Foo's Fabulous Frozen Custard.
"Our product is totally different. We won't have mix-ins and I think we'll be offering more adult-oriented flavors," says Elbow.
Featured flavors will be the fleur de sel caramel ice cream, which Elbow calls his "hands-down number one seller," alongside chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. But the vanilla will include beans from Madagascar, Tahiti and Mexico -- that's what he means by "adult flavors." Other potential flavors include rosemary caramel, pineapple cilantro sorbet, heirloom tomato sorbet and cucumber sorbet. And he's considering making an ice cream from goat's milk.
"You won't see trendy flavors. We're not going to do bacon. I want the ice cream to be something you eat and then want to eat again -- a small batch of something really interesting," says Elbow.
The flavors will be seasonal, probably changing every other day, and Elbow will serve two sizes of ice cream -- small and regular -- and two sauces, something like chocolate and fleur de sel caramel.
"The older I get, the more I want to keep it simple and focus on one thing," he says.
And right now, that thing is ice cream.
Initial image courtesy of Christopher Elbow.