Walnut and Blue Cheese Ice Cream? Welcome Steve's to Atlantic Ave.!

Ice cream fans, rejoice! Steve’s Ice Cream, the locally sourced and flavor-adventurous company, is opening soon on Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill.

Steve’s Ice Cream first opened in 1973 in Somerville, Massachusetts. The company introduced the idea of custom-made flavors, where customers could choose to mix whatever ingredients they fancied into their ice cream. The flavors were mixed right there and served immediately -  an idea that became wildly popular over the next few decades.

David Stein, the founder of the current Steve’s Ice Cream, worked at the original Steve’s in Somerville as an ice cream mixer. The original Steve’s Ice Cream went out of business in the 90s, but Stein has recently brought Steve’s back, this time to New York City.

He wants “to create the same excitement, not the same company,” said Amelia Mayberry, director of marketing and communications.

While the original Steve’s Ice Cream was all about innovative ideas that brought something unique to the ice cream world, the new Steve’s is more of an “ice cream for foodies,” bringing in alternative flavors and local ingredients for their products.

Two locations are opening in the city: one near Bryant Park in Manhattan, which opens officially next week, and the shop at 420 Atlantic Ave., opening later this summer.

The shops will also sell artisanal products but, as Mayberry said, “everything in the store ties back to the ice cream.”  

The Boerum Hill location features a 900-square-foot outdoor garden area, which will make for a great hang-out. They may even grow herbs in the backyard which will then be used in ice cream flavors.

Steve's is interested in taking chances with flavors. Mayberry said one favorite flavor is blue cheese and peppered walnut ice cream.

And when the new shops open, Mayberry says Steve's will take the opportunity to use customers as guinea pigs. More unique flavors can be tried out, she said, before they are packaged and sold in pints.

“We look at it as a test kitchen,” she said.

Mayberry and others have been travelling throughout Brooklyn, tasting local, artisanal foods and ingredients that they could use in their ice cream.

Already they have made strawberry ricotta ice cream with ricotta from Salvatore Brooklyn, a kombucha sorbet with kombucha from Kombucha Brooklyn, coffee ice cream with coffee from Plousher’s coffee in upstate New York, and Brooklyn Blackout ice cream, with cake from Ovenly.

Ideas in the making include a beer ice cream that uses Six Point beer, and a key lime pie ice cream using Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies, based in Red Hook.

The dairy base of the ice cream comes from Hudson Valley Fresh, a co-op of dairy farms in upstate New York. Steve’s also offers a non-dairy line, that uses coconut creme.

Until the shops open, you can enjoy Steve’s Ice Cream by the pint. In Brooklyn, it's sold at , Brooklyn Fair, , Perelandra, and the Park Slope Food Co-op.