CARROLL GARDENS — A craft ice cream shop and tasting room is set to open on Sackett Street just in time for summer.
MilkMade Ice Cream is opening its first brick-and-mortar shop and production space at 204 Sackett St., the former location of Hay Rosie, another ice cream parlor that lasted only a few months in 2014.
The artisanal ice cream makers hosted a soft opening last weekend but tentatively plans to make it official next week, owner and founder Diana Hardeman said.
Hardeman, 32, launched MilkMade in December 2009 after starting out by making ice cream in her kitchen and serving it to friends and family, she said.
Her ice cream’s popularity grew quickly, and suddenly “we had a waitlist of people for a business that hadn’t really started,” she said.
MilkMade Ice Cream is “locally sourced and responsibly sourced,” with all ingredients made from scratch in-house, Hardeman explained.
The company works mostly through subscriptions, in which members pay $30 per month for two pints of unique flavors that never repeat themselves and are delivered to each address.
“We really have a story behind every flavor, and that’s the fun part,” she said
Two recent flavors that were sent to members included “Open Sesame,” in honor of opening the new Carroll Gardens parlor, and “Tim Tam Slam,” a chocolate mint julep ice cream with Tim Tams for the Kentucky Derby.
The shop will likely be serving its five signature flavors: Amagansett Sea Salted Caramel, Rock Rock Rockaway Road, Grady’s Manhattan, Chinatown Chocolate and Fingerlakes PB&J.
The Sackett Street space will also serve as MilkMade’s production facility, where the company hopes to increase its monthly output of pints as well as expand its membership numbers.
While Hardeman had been searching for a new manufacturing space, opening a tasting room and parlor wasn’t part of her immediate plan, she said.
It was only after Stef Ferrari, owner and founder of Hay Rosie, contacted her about the address's availability that she jumped at the opportunity, she said.
Hay Rosie, which opened at 204 Sackett St. last summer, closed after a “super successful first year” and Ferrari plans to travel in and out of the city, hosting pop-ups, collaborations and “ice cream residencies,” she said in a blog post.
MilkMade Ice Cream’s shop will be open from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays, noon to 11 p.m. on Saturday, and noon to 9 p.m. on Sunday.
