Pete Castleberry saw a hole in the Denver metro ice cream scene: Plenty of scoops, but not much craft soft serve.
“If there’s a soft serve option, I will generally always go for the soft serve,” Castleberry said.
So he created his own. Power Cone started as a food truck in 2022 before Castleberry opened his brick-and-mortar shop last year in Arvada. There, he’s built a following for craft soft serve made with milk from Morning Fresh Dairy in the Colorado town of Bellvue (“The cows — those are the employees of the year”, he quips) and other carefully sourced ingredients like organic cane sugar and vanilla from a company that works with farmers in Madagascar.
Relate: At this soft-serve spot, the flavors are natural and the ice cream is rich and smooth
His ice cream clocks in around 12 to 12.5% butterfat, giving it a richer, creamier texture than many soft-serve products.
For Castleberry, the Arvada shop is also something of a career full circle. As a college student, he had a job scooping Ben & Jerry’s on Boulder’s Pearl Street. “I think that kind of planted a seed for me,” he said.
Power Cone is part of a new crop of ice cream shops giving locals more ways to cool down this summer. The latest arrivals run the gamut from pastry-chef-driven scoops to matcha soft serve swirled into fish-shaped waffle cones to an ice cream “taphouse” serving flavors from some of the city’s most beloved makers.
Here’s the scoop on several new and new-ish ice cream shops to check out now, plus a couple more on the way.
Power Cone
The core menu keeps the classics in rotation and ready to swirl–chocolate, vanilla and strawberry—alongside a seasonal flavor. For summer, that means Palisade peach made with real Colorado fruit. As temperatures cool, look for coffee soft serve and fall-inspired flavors such as maple, pumpkin spice and apple pie.
Soft serve is certainly the star of the menu, but there are plenty of ways to dress it up. Options include affogato with espresso poured on top, specialty sundaes (try the Biscoff version with cookie butter), floats and “avalanches” loaded with mix-ins. Even the waffle cones get creative, with flavors like matcha green tea, red velvet and Belgian chocolate.
8295 Ralston Road, Unit 103, Arvada;
Darlene’s Ice Cream
Darlene’s Ice Cream may be only months old, but co-owner Joy Williams-Clark has been working toward it for much longer. “If you ask my mom, I’ve talked about having an ice cream shop since sixth grade,” she said.
Williams-Clark is a professional pastry chef who worked with several Denver restaurant groups before serving as executive pastry chef for Edible Beats. Her husband and Darlene’s co-owner, Kyle Clark, is also a chef.
The two met while working at ChoLon together 13 years ago. After they had two daughters, Williams-Clark began reconsidering what a long-term career in restaurants looked like. An ice cream shop offered a chance to continue doing the creative culinary work the couple loves while spending more time with family.
Named for Williams-Clark’s grandmother, Darlene’s opened in January, and the couple’s restaurant backgrounds are evident throughout the ice cream case. Williams-Clark approaches each flavor much like she would a plated dessert, layering ingredients and textures rather than simply dreaming up a scoop.
“We really challenge ourselves to bring that high-end restaurant expectation into every scoop,” Williams-Clark said.
That can mean white espresso chip made with locally roasted Queen City Collective Coffee or a seasonal peach verbena sorbet featuring Colorado peaches. A key lime pie flavor was inspired by an ice cream Clark remembers eating as a kid. Classic flavors like French vanilla and dark chocolate share the menu with inventive ones like “sweet corn and huckleberry.”
Williams-Clark also loves that owning an ice cream shop comes with another perk: “We get to be the best part of somebody’s day,” she said.
3105 S. Peoria St., Aurora;
Ichigo Matcha’s new locations
Ichigo Matcha and its darling fish waffle cones are expanding their footprint (or perhaps finprint) along the Front Range. The Japanese matcha and dessert shop, which has locations at 16th and Larimer streets and on the Auraria Campus, recently opened near the University of Denver and has a Boulder location with an opening date set fo Aug. 10.
A signature treat is taiyaki, a fish-shaped Japanese waffle complete with imprinted scales and fins. The warm waffle can be filled with matcha, strawberry soft serve or a swirl of both, then dressed up Pocky sticks for a dessert that practically begs for a photo before the first bite.
Newest locations: 2075 S. University Blvd, Unit C, Denver and 1313 College Ave., Boulder;
Hip Hop Ice Cream Shop
Hip Hop Ice Cream opened this spring in Denver’s SloHi neighborhood (a few blocks north of Sloan’s Lake) with a clever concept: Think of it as an ice cream taphouse, or, in music terms, an all-star collaboration of Colorado ice cream makers. Instead of making its own ice cream, the shop brings Colorado producers under one roof, including Little Man, Bonnie Brae, High Point Creamery, Liks, Enstrom, Fat Batter, Polar Bros, Besties and Frosty Paws.
Ice cream lovers will find 18 rotating flavors, which can be dressed up with house-made “Drizzles & Fo’shizzles,” like warm caramel, fruit compotes, crème anglaise and chocolate sauce.
Sundaes are the specialty, and during daily Ice Cream Happy Hour from 1 to 5 p.m., scoops come with two complimentary toppings. Dogs get their own menu options, too, including whipped cream “Scoop Dogg” pup cups and Frosty Paws frozen treats.
4430 W. 29th Ave., Denver,
Sundae
Mountain-town favorite Sundae made its Denver debut this summer with a 5,100-square-foot flagship space at Glenarm Place and 16th Street. Itap part scoop shop, part ice cream factory: Guests can watch ice cream being made through glass windows and see fresh waffle cones coming off the iron in a street-facing “waffle cone theater.”
Related: New ice cream shop with a ‘waffle theater’ bets big on downtown Denver
The cases rotate through classics like salted cookies and cream, espresso and cheesecake, plus limited-edition flavors that change throughout the season. Sundae also goes big on its namesake creations. Expect sundaes like “Worms & Dirt,” made with salted cookies and cream ice cream, chocolate sandwich cookies, mini gummy worms, chocolate pudding and whipped cream.
1600 Glenarm Place, Denver;
More Ice Cream Shops Coming Soon
Denver’s ice cream boom isn’t over yet. At least two more shops are preparing to open their doors.
Sadboy Creamery has built a devoted following without a storefront, selling small-batch pints through weekly “drops” that can sell out faster than you can scream “ice cream.”
Every Monday at 10 a.m., the creamery releases a rotating lineup of flavors for preorder, with customers picking up their pints later in the week. Recent creations have included Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp; Atlantic Beach Cry (Pie), with salted sweet cream ice cream, lemon-lime curd and toasted Ritz cracker pie crust; and Cookie Dough-eo, made with brown sugar ice cream, homemade cookie dough, chocolate shards, Oreo chunks and an Oreo fudge swirl.
Soon, Sadboy will have more room to churn: The creamery is planning a brick-and-mortar shop at 1502 Marion St., just off East Colfax Avenue, with a September opening targeted. The new space will allow the cult-favorite ice cream business to ramp up production beyond its limited weekly drops.
Meanwhile, another sweet arrival is taking a decidedly different approach to the cone itself.
Crispy Cones is doubling down on Colorado, with a second location headed to Denver’s Jefferson Park neighborhood. The “Shark Tank”-backed dessert franchise, which already has a shop in Centennial, is planning a new outpost at 3000 W. 23rd Ave.
The European-inspired concept swaps traditional ice cream cones for warm dough cones cooked rotisserie-style and coated in cinnamon sugar or specialty flavors (think: Golden Oreo). The inside is lined with a spread like Nutella, cookie butter, strawberry jam or peanut butter, then filled with soft serve and finished with fruit, drizzles and toppings.
