Ice Cream Museum Opens In New York City: Limited Free Admission

Is there anyone that doesn’t love ice cream? A cup of vanilla on a hot day or a hot fudge sundae during the fall could entice nearly everyone to an ice cream shop. Could that love actually bring people into a museum, though?

The answer is: “yes!”

Despite the universal love of ice cream, it’s easy to wonder how people could turn it into a museum. Most people are only exposed to the delicious, but somewhat predictable, flavors offered by places like Carvel and Baskin Robbins. There, the most exotic flavors that consumers will come in contact with usually come in the form of a flavor of the month.

The flavors found in those chains, however, are not nearly the rarest forms of ice cream available. Right in New York City are smaller businesses that carry significantly more exotic flavors.

Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, for instance, carries popular favorites alongside ginger, black sesame, and durian — an Asian fruit that smells like rotting garbage but has a custardy texture and sweet taste.

Oddfellows, another purveyor of that creamy goodness, sells combined flavors that make even the most common ingredients look new and exciting. Among their flavors are: buttermilk honey blueberry, saffron passion fruit, and cornbread.

Both businesses, known for their high-quality and interesting flavors, have a hand in the pop-up ice cream museum coming to New York City.

The museum will be opening on Friday, July 29, 2016.

Some of what visitors can expect from the Museum of Ice Cream include things like a swimmable rainbow sprinkle pool that they can travel to through a tunnel of chocolate, a room showcasing edible balloons, a collaborative ice cream sundae, and a Tinder room made for dates and finding ones “true flavor match.”

Although it’s clear that some of the exhibits are non-edible, there are still plenty of rooms dedicated to the main purpose of ice cream: being eating. According to Eater, the companies listed above, as well as food scientist Irwin Adam, will be creating exclusive flavors for the Museum of Ice Cream. There will be tastings and a “scoop of the week.”

“It’s really going to be a play on flavor, and an experience in flavor,” Adam told amNY. “The work that we do is about creating food conscience. It’s going to be a fun experience at the end that makes you think about what’s possible in flavor.”

The ice cream wonderland seems to be a page right out of Willy Wonka’s playbook, but it was the brain child of Maryellis Bunn.

“Here, the aim is happiness!” Bunn told Forbes, “as Museum of Ice Cream is all about our shared love of ice cream, summer, and one another.”

Although the museum is meant to be a happy place that promotes unity, it’s also educational. At the Museum of Ice Cream people will be able to learn about what goes into making their favorite creamy treat as well as the differences between types of ice cream and between commercial and craft products.

For right now, the Museum of Ice Cream will be temporary, but the past has proven that a food museum can conceivably do very well.

As shown in Bon Appetit and CNN publications, there are museums dedicated to food all over the world: The Spam Museum (United States), Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum (Ramen – Japan), Kimchi Museum (Seoul), Canadian Potato Museum (Canada), Colman’s Mustard Shop and Museum (United Kingdom), Frietmuseum (French Fries – Belgium), Dutch Cheese Museum (Netherlands), and many, many more.

Tickets to the Museum of Ice Cream initially went for $18 per person, but they have since been sold out. There’s still hope, however for people wishing to visit. The museum will open to the public, for free, on a first come – first serve basis between 11am and 3pm on Friday.

[ Photo By AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews ]