"Well, I never kept a dollar past sunset
It always burned a…read morehole in my pants
Never made a school mama happy
Never blew a second chance, oh no
I need a love to keep me happy
Baby, baby, keep me happy"
(Jagger & Richard)
When you walk into Van Leeuwen, look to the wall on the left side of the seating area. You'll see big painted letters, illuminated by lights as if a divine revelation from the Lord above that reads "A Life Without Anything Good is Bad".
Van Leeuwen's website takes that thought even further with this - "What could be happier than that magic combination of milk, cream, eggs, and cane sugar (or coconuts, cashews and oats for our vegan friends)? Yes, our ice cream has fat. And that's okay. It's good-good, not good-bad".
OK, that kind of gets your expectations up for some great ice cream, and Van Leeuwen sure delivered on that expectation. Their ice cream experience starts with the large amount of floor space their store occupies. It's a big open space with pretty yellow and pink and woodgrain color schemes. The ordering area is spacious, as is their dining area if you want to gobble up your cones and cups inside the store.
Their business model is crushing it, considering they've only been around since 2008, but already have 34 stores in New York, 13 in California, 3 in New Jersey, 8 in Texas, 5 in Pennsylvania, 2 in Colorado, 4 in (downstate) Connecticut, 7 in Washington D.C., 4 in Massachusetts, one in Florida, 2 in Nashville, and dozens more coming soon across the continent.
When I was checking out their flavors, I saw another sign that read "If you have a mouth, we have a flavor". There were 16 regular, 6 vegan, and three special flavors on the menu board yesterday, so that's a very nice selection.
I went with a cup of a special flavor - "Sweet Corn Blueberry Jam" with a dark chocolate curl topping. It was wonderful. I truly tasted more blueberry than sweet corn in the dish, but those itty-bitty ribbons of dark chocolate were fantastic.
Van Leeuwen is not the least expensive ice cream shop I've seen, but it sure is one of the more fun places to visit, and their ice creams are great.