Ample Hills Creamery, the beloved East Coast ice cream shop that has built up a massive following, today opened its sole West Coast location at the retail complex 2nd+PCH.
Like its predecessors in New York, this shop will have its own special flavor, known as Spruce Goose, honoring the famed aircraft vessel of Howard Hughes that first took flight here in Long Beach. The shop-specific flavor will be banana ice cream stuffed with chunks of the shop’s house made chocolate pecan bars.
“We are thrilled to open a new shop in California, and even more excited to introduce our ice cream to the community of Long Beach,” said Michael Zapata, CEO of Ample Hills Creamery, in a written statement. “As a Los Angeles resident, I am greatly looking forward to bringing my two young sons and wife for scoops as often as I can.”
The shop has experienced a rough ride in 2020: Laying off nearly all its employees at the start of the pandemic, the shop formally filed for bankruptcy in June despite pulling in $10 million in sales in 2019. Shortly after bankruptcy was declared, the struggling shop was acquired by Schmitt Industries for $1 million, which effectively shut down its two Florida locations while keeping eight shops in New York and one in New Jersey.
This is also not the first shop to be seen here in California, as the shop’s Los Feliz closed this past January after just over a year of operations.
These tests of stability stand as a moment of sadness in the ice cream shop’s humble beginnings: Husband-and-wife team Jackie Cuscuna and Brian Smith started out with a pushcart selling their homemade ice cream flavors to throngs of eager Brooklynites in Prospect heights. It then quickly grew to multiple locations, including one in Disney World and a proposed factory in Red Hook—an expansion that proved too much, with Cuscuna and Smith announcing they would no longer be involved with the company after declaring bankruptcy.
Ample Hills Creamery will be open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.