Ample Hills Creamery starts scooping at its new Red Hook factory
The scoop shop is the company’s seventh location in the city (Photos by Steve Koepp)
Brooklyn-based Ample Hills Creamery has opened the scoop shop at its long-awaited new factory location in Red Hook. Factory tours will be offered starting later this month, an employee said.
The 15,000-sq.-ft. factory at 421 Van Brunt St. (at the corner of Beard Street) will be able to churn out 1 million gallons of ice cream a year to supply the brand’s growing network of shops. The new location, which was originally scheduled to open last fall, started scooping on July 4, the Red Hook Star-Revue reported.
Compared with the company’s current flagship factory in Gowanus, which has a pastoral motif, the new location has more of an industrial vibe, including a sign over the counter that may remind Brooklynites of the now-dismantled Kentile Floors sign that towered nearby.
Red Hook will be the company’s seventh permanent location in the city. The company opened its first shop in Queens last month, at 34-02 30th Ave. The shop presented a special flavor, “Nectar of the Queens,” to honor the Astoria neighborhood’s Greek heritage.
On Friday night, a family considered dessert options. Every Ample Hills flavor has a bit of a story behind it
Ample Hills also has permanent locations in Jersey City, N.J., and at Disney World in Florida, as well as seasonal shops in Brooklyn Bridge Park and Riis Park Beach Bazaar. The company plans to open a location in the trendy Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles later this summer.
The Red Hook shop is serving up classic Ample Hills flavors like Ooey Gooey Butter Cake and special creations like Summer of Love, which is sweet cream mixed with tie-dyed cupcakes from Baked by Melissa.
You can read our profile of the company and its founders Brian Smith and Jackie Cuscuna, “How Ample Hills Nails the Cultural Zeitgeist,” here.
The new shop and factory is just steps away from two other intensely popular Red Hook destinations, Hometown Bar-B-Que and Brooklyn Crab
