Freeze Jag: Intermission

Posted by Warren Rojas / Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

[We interrupt your regularly scheduled sweets sortie for this meditation on the state of frozen desserts in NoVA today.]

In Northern Virginia, summer can mean many things. But most of all it means that it’s hot out.

Not warm.

Not pleasant.

Hot. Sticky, wet, swampy horror heat that gets under your skin and steam-cooks your brain.

For years, a healthy dose of ice cream has been the go-to remedy for beating the heat, but lately the frozen favorite has seen an increase in frosty competition from the resurgence of the tangy, original style frozen yogurt, and the funky flavors of Italian gelato.

Boasting about its low-fat content and natural ingredients, frozen yogurt start-ups like Pinkberry and Red Mango stormed the country since their founding in the latter half of the last decade. Gelato producers took a similar approach, spinning its product as a classier, more delicate alternative to ice cream. Northern Virginia and D.C. has seen several specialty gelaterias open like Plush (Vienna) or Boccato (Clarendon, Old Town Alexandria); some are on their way to becoming successful franchises—Pitango has four locations, Dolcezza, three.

Gelato and frozen yogurt places have popped up in bustling civic centers like Reston Town Center, Old Town Alexandria, Tysons Corner, Clarendon and all over Washington.

Still, what’s wrong with ice cream? In all of the frenzy, how have the area’s old fashioned ice cream makers fared in the blitz of trendy treats?

“We’re selling more ice cream now than we ever have,” Kline’s Freeze owner James Croushorn said, he and his wife having bought the business from his father-in-law 13 years ago. “We’re pretty much maxed out when we’re busy; this little building wasn’t built to do the business we’re doing.”

Kline’s sells locally sourced, old fashioned, low-fat soft serve ice cream and has been in Manassas since 1965. Things haven’t changed much over the last half-century. “We’re selling the same product we’ve had for 30-some years,” Croushorn boasted.

Trends come and go in the dessert market, and Kline’s hasn’t been immune to trying out hot new items in the past. “I think years back my in-laws tried to sell a yogurt product here, and our customer base didn’t like it and didn’t want it,” he said. “I’m sticking with ice cream.”

The longstanding popularity of a place like Kline’s, which has weathered countless trends in the past, isn’t surprising. But it seems that even the newer home-made ice cream shops do not view gelato and frozen yogurt as a serious threat. “I know it has not affected us, our sales are also growing” Toby Bantug, who owns Toby’s Homemade Ice Cream with his wife, Monina, asserted.

Toby’s serves hand-dipped, super-premium ice cream, which Bantug makes on the premises. And while Bantug acknowledges the popularity of frozen yogurt and gelato, he doesn’t view them as a threat for the ice cream market. In fact, he welcomes them. “Although frozen yogurt has the healthy thing going for it, it makes people aware of frozen desserts and makes people think about ice cream. It’s all good,” he said.

David Tax, owner of Lazy Sundae, which serves hard ice cream made from dairy from the Shenandoah Valley, is equally unfazed by “it” dessert shops. “The quick hitters, the trendy places, you’re not going to see those places in three or four years because they’re hitting, and as soon as their business takes a downturn, and it’s going to because it’s a trend … they’re history,” Tax predicted.

Outside of the cities and suburbs, trendy frozen goods barely register with ice cream vendors. Moo Thru turned out to be a runaway success when it opened in 2010 despite its remote location. The modest stand sells ice cream made from cream sourced from owner Ken Smith’s own dairy farm, and he claims it’s not uncommon to see people coming from as far as 40 or 50 miles away just for a cone.

“It seems that the more [customers] taste our product the more they want of it,” Smith said.

Smith’s stand has been doing so well, in fact, that the dairy farmer turned ice cream magnate is considering opening a second location in Northern Virginia proper. Even with expansion on his mind, Smith hasn’t given competition from gelato and frozen yogurt much thought.

“I don’t think [gelato and frozen yogurt] are in my realm of thinking simply because they offer a different type of product,” he said. “When we were starting in this business, gelato was a name that was thrown at us a lot… a new dessert product people were striving for… and yogurt being the same, and it’s not that we’re without a thought of those products… but right now we’re focusing on our quality ice cream.”

So there you have it: ice cream—it’s still popular.

—Kris King

Tags: boccato gelato, Dolcezza, Freeze Jag, fro yo, Frozen Custard, frozen yogurt, gelato, Gut Check, ice cream, Kline's Freeze, Kris King, Lazy Sundae, Northern Virginia Magazine, NoVA, Pinkberry, Pitango, Plush Gelato & Coffee, Red Mango, Toby's Homemade Ice Cream