UNION SQUARE — Cooling off never tasted so sweet.
Just in time for July's National Ice Cream Month, Sugartooth Tours is launching a tour of Lower Manhattan ice cream shops.
The Ice Cream Summer Sundays dessert tour will hit up to six spots in SoHo, Little Italy and Chinatown starting July 21, offering a chance to sample frozen hot chocolate, sesame, avocado and other flavors.
The two-and-a-half-hour event — which will visit shops including Nolita’s Rice to Riches and Smush ice cream deli’s new location in Union Square — will also cover the history and culinary landscape of the neighborhoods.
Allyson Tolbert, co-owner of Sugartooth Tours, said tour-goers would get samples at each spot, and would end the tour full, but not too full.
“You’re not actually indulging so much that you feel uncomfortable,” Tolbert said.
Tolbert, 28, and her best friend, Sarah Rolleston, founded the food tour company almost a year ago after Rolleston searched — unsuccessfully — for a gelato tour to give Tolbert as a birthday present last July.
“One didn’t exist, so it only made sense, once [summer] came back around, to launch an ice cream tour,” Tolbert said.
Both musical theater performers, Tolbert and Rolleston started Sugartooth Tours in a neighborhood they knew — Manhattan’s Theater District.
Tolbert is fresh off a stint as an ensemble member on the national tour of the musical “Catch Me If You Can,” and Rolleston is about to begin a run in “Legally Blonde" in St. Louis. They met while performing together on the national tour of “Beauty & The Beast.”
"We’re also foodies at heart,” Tolbert said. “We pride ourselves on sweets.”
Sugartooth Tours offers a year-round dessert tour of Hell's Kitchen, as well as other seasonal outings. It will start up an “Autumn in New York“ tour this September.
“You really get to hang out and eat with your friends and family,” Tolbert said. “And one of the best [things] is sharing life over food.”
Tickets for Sugartooth’s Ice Cream Summer Sundays tour cost $50 apiece, and Tolbert recommends booking seven days in advance. For more information and to purchase tickets, call 800-838-3006. Tours will run through Aug. 18.
